Yankee Stranger

Rating:
Summary: A timeless historical series you'll read and reread!
Review: Elswyth Thane wrote a timeless tale of the human experience and how it is affected by war and made bearable by love. With skilled writing and human insight she made those moments come alive and ring true for every generation from the 1700s to the 1940s! I stumbled on "Dawns Early Light" at the local library when I was in my 20s and traveled between three libraries to find the other five books in successive order. I'm rereading them now in my mid-50s and enjoying them more than when I read them at 30 and 40. Im still traveling to three libraries to ferret them out. How delighted I am to finally find a source where I can put together my own set. I purchased "Dawns Early Light" during a visit to Williamsburg in 1978 and it remains one of my most cherished books. I am still enthralled with Thayne's descriptions of Marion's (the Swamp Fox) camp and the battles of Camden and the Pine Barrens. These novels have done more to foster my life-long love of American history than any other books I've ever read.

Rating:
Summary: You can't go wrong with these novels!
Review: I discovered Thane's Williamsburg novels as a sophomore in high school in the 1970's. I devoured them! My reading sealed my decision to major in history at university, and now I have a PhD in history. I was so enamoured of the characters that I named my daughter Susannah, after one of the major figures in "Yankee Stranger." Had she been a boy, she'd have been "Sedgwick." For anyone who loves history and enjoys the personalization of history, I can think of no other historical fiction that so satisfies. I have read these books many times, and have always enjoyed them thoroughly.

Rating:
Summary: A Book You Will Read Over & Over
Review: I first read the Women of Williamsburg series as a young teenager. They were not only great reading and wonderful stories, but lots of history mixed in. All of the books are great of course, but this one is one of my favorite that I sem to go back to & read again every couple of years. I am excited to finally find a matching set of the series.Most of the women in my family have read these books- my grandmother, who in turn got my mother to read, who in turn got me to read. I cannot wait until my daughter is old enough to read & enjoy them as well.

Rating:
Summary: Enchanting
Review: I loved this book. Tibby is very old, but she is still alert and full of spirit. (She is one of the most delightful characters ever created.) I liked the main characters quite a bit. They are nice, entertaining, real, and their speech is never, ever dull.

The story takes place during the Civil War. The family, a loveable group, lives mostly in Williamsburg. A northener named Cabot Murray visits them and falls in love. But war comes and he supports Lincoln and their lives have a lot of problems. The historical facts are worked in well and are often quite interesting. The author has a fairly balanced view on the Civil War, and should not offend any one with her moderate views.

I loved Eden (heroine). I loved Sue (secondary heroine). I _hated_ Sedgewick (secondary hero). What a moral weakling to say one minute he supports one side, and the next minute enlist in the other. He is disgustingly weak. Cabot Murry (hero) is WONDERFUL.

Rating:
Summary: Great storytelling
Review: This was the first book I read in the series...and have since devoured all of them. The first 3 remain my favorites...my only complaint/gripe is that Eden is given such short shrift after "Yankee Stranger". She's such a compelling person...and to suddenly disappear almost from the pages is very disappointing. At least we keep up with the exploits of Susannah and Bracken. This is a wonderful series for romance..and you learn a lot about history, besides!

Rating:
Summary: Days and Spragues -- The Next Generation
Review: Well, not quite, perhaps. A couple of generations get skipped (as do several wars) between the first and second books in this series, but "Yankee Stranger" is well worth the wait. The presence of Tibby Day, now approaching 100, gives the meandering trail between books one and two a context and much-needed continuity -- and the overlap of the generations which this scenario demonstrates has always fascinated me in my own life. As in book one, Thane's characters grip you firmly and draw you unresisting into the tangle of their lives, battered by war and division, anchored by family affection and made luminous by love and passion: Eden, the Titian beauty pulled in different directions by love and loyalty; Cabot, product of an embittered father who learns to love and trust despite the cataclysm of war; Susannah and Sedgwick, the star-crossed lovers who must face the future without each other; and most joyously, Tibby Day, a matriarch in wisdom, a "character" in the idiomatic sense, and the glue that binds the family and the book together. As usual, the history in this book is exact and irreproachable, the historical characters become human, and the atmosphere is tangible and touchable. Libby Prison is juxtaposed against fashionable Willard's Hotel; war-ravaged Richmond underlines in blood-red the quaint and restful pastels of ante-bellum Williamsburg; military camps stand vivid against civilized family holidays and the gentle spirit of Tibby Day presides over all. Courage and dedication, sacrifice and humor, the entire spectrum of human emotion emerges in this book. The superficial reader will be offended, as in Thane's other books, at the casually racist undertones, but the historically aware will rightly attribute them not only to the age in which the story takes place, but the era in which the author is writing. With history books firmly in hand and love stories firmly in mind, Thane once more slips us back through time into a memorable past -- and makes us eager to move forward to the next book in the series!

Rating:
Summary: Days and Spragues -- The Next Generation
Review: Well, not quite, perhaps. A couple of generations get skipped (as do several wars) between the first and second books in this series, but "Yankee Stranger" is well worth the wait. The presence of Tibby Day, now approaching 100, gives the meandering trail between books one and two a context and much-needed continuity -- and the overlap of the generations which this scenario demonstrates has always fascinated me in my own life. As in book one, Thane's characters grip you firmly and draw you unresisting into the tangle of their lives, battered by war and division, anchored by family affection and made luminous by love and passion: Eden, the Titian beauty pulled in different directions by love and loyalty; Cabot, product of an embittered father who learns to love and trust despite the cataclysm of war; Susannah and Sedgwick, the star-crossed lovers who must face the future without each other; and most joyously, Tibby Day, a matriarch in wisdom, a "character" in the idiomatic sense, and the glue that binds the family and the book together. As usual, the history in this book is exact and irreproachable, the historical characters become human, and the atmosphere is tangible and touchable. Libby Prison is juxtaposed against fashionable Willard's Hotel; war-ravaged Richmond underlines in blood-red the quaint and restful pastels of ante-bellum Williamsburg; military camps stand vivid against civilized family holidays and the gentle spirit of Tibby Day presides over all. Courage and dedication, sacrifice and humor, the entire spectrum of human emotion emerges in this book. The superficial reader will be offended, as in Thane's other books, at the casually racist undertones, but the historically aware will rightly attribute them not only to the age in which the story takes place, but the era in which the author is writing. With history books firmly in hand and love stories firmly in mind, Thane once more slips us back through time into a memorable past -- and makes us eager to move forward to the next book in the series!