Wall of Fire (The Appomattox Saga, Book 7) [Paperback]

Gilbert Morris (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 8, 1995

As Mark Rocklin lies dying, his one hope is to be reunited with his estranged daughter, Allyn.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers (March 8, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0842381260
• ISBN-13: 978-0842381260
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #960,241 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Gilbert Morris is among today's most popular Christian writers; his books having sold nearly six million copies worldwide. He specializes in historical fiction and won a 2001 Christy Award for the Civil War drama Edge of Honor. Once a pastor and English professor who earned a Ph.D. from the University of Arkansas, Morris lives with his wife in Gulf Shores, Alabama.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good enough to finish, August 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Wall of Fire (The Appomattox Saga, Book 7) (Paperback)

Gilbert Morris is a splendid author, and this book was another one of his fine works. He came up with the most delightful metaphor, and I cannot wait for an opportunity to use it. One of the characters said: "I'm as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs." I thought that was so cute!

2.0 out of 5 stars Finished Only for the Subplot, August 10, 2011

By 

Varina M. (Scottsdale, Arizona USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wall of Fire (The Appomattox Saga, Book 7) (Paperback)

I really enjoyed the first half of this series, which I started after reading the first nine books of Morris's House of Winslow Series, and I would apply the other reviewers' feelings to those books--that they touched my heart. Gilbert Morris sometimes commits historical howlers (having the heroine of THE SAINTLY BUCCANEER say that a tavern owner lost his eye at Trafalgar, a battle that wouldn't take place until over 25 years after she mentions it, for example), but usually these errors occur well into the book, by which time I care so much about the characters that I go on with the story anyway and enjoy it.
In WALL OF FIRE, however, I didn't come to care enough about the heroine, Allyn Griffeth, the daughter that the the late family patriarch Noah Rocklin's prodigal son, Mark, unknowingly fathered on an 1840's visit to New Orleans. I didn't dislike Allyn and was mildly glad for her when the severely wounded Mark learns of her existence in 1863 and invites her to Gracefield, the Rocklins' Virginia plantation, to make things right after her childhood of poverty and struggle. I just didn't feel deeply for her. The writing seemed full of repetitive words and phrases, like "There was a hardness (or fill in various other traits) in this girl that (fill in a verb)," and "vulnerable" and "vulnerability" used over and over to describe Allyn, so that the words began to jump out at me (here we are again!). Even the simile another reviewer loved, "as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockingchairs," didn't read as fresh to me, since Morris had used it in THE DIXIE WIDOW. And while this book was by no means a copy of GONE WITH THE WIND (in terms of plot or the heroine's family circumstances), little things seemed like awkward borrowings, like the cynical blockade runner hero, his promising the lead female house slave a red petticoat from his next trip overseas, and the author's naming the plantation Mark Rocklin offers his daughter Twelve Trees, a blander-named homage to Twelve Oaks (in the final chapter of the edition I read, Moris refers to Twelve Trees as Seven Pines; maybe an overworked Morris and the editors were tired by then and pushed the book out too fast).
If it hadn't been for a subplot involving Colonel Gideon Rocklin, a member of the northern branch of the extensive Rocklin clan, who played a major role in earlier books, I don't know if I would have read straight through, rather than just skip to the end. I cared more what happened to him than what happened to Allyn, hero Jason, and Mark, whose fate seemed definite, and I didn't know how Gideon and his allies would resolve his life-threatening dilemma.
With the writing less fresh and my concern for the main characters shallower, all the historically inaccurate cotton plantations around Richmond bothered me more than I'd let them do in previous books, dating back as far as THE DIXIE WIDOW (Book 9 of The House of Winslowe Series). Had the story taken place in the deeper South, where Morris lives, cotton fields would have fit, but in Virginia, they weren't the major crop at all. This is important, since Morris repeatedly makes the point in the Appomattox Saga books, as he did in THE DIXIE WIDOW, that the planters around Richmond would have been better off switching from the cotton I was sure they woeren't growing to raising food products like corn and hogs.
I really looked forward to this story after books 1-5 of the series (and even Book 6, which seemed less good than 1-5 but better than this one) and was sure I'd read through the tenth book before the year's end, but now I've postponed that indefinitely. I _may_ eventually give him a second chance by returning to the House of Winslowe Series, which was about to move west when I left it for the Appomattox Saga, so those pesky cotton fields won't be there to bother me, but even that I'm likely to put off until next year, to let my disappointment ebb.

5.0 out of 5 stars Captures the Mind as well as the Heart, November 29, 2000

By 

Autumn Buckner (Georgia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wall of Fire (The Appomattox Saga, Book 7) (Paperback)

Gilbert Morris is a remarkable author. He is talented and detailed oriented. I own all of the Appomatox Saga. Each one I devoured and was hard put to lay down. Being a Civil War Reenactor, I found his details quite accurate and thoughtful. I enjoyed this book very much and would recommend the whole series if you enjoy historical fiction, especially from the Civil War era.