Review: Endearing Story, Beautifully Written!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 29, 2013
I was hooked by the first line with the beautiful writing.  The story itself quickly reeled me in with the conflicts of its two, endearing, main characters.  Carrie Fancett Pagels makes history come alive with her words and brings her southern setting to life so that I felt I was right there on a gorgeous Virginia plantation in the midst of the Civil War.It is 1862 and thespian Matthew Scott is abducted from Ohio and the theater troupe he manages.  He is conscripted against his will into serving with the Confederate army because of his father's political leanings.  He is not a soldier and feels lost and out of place as he follows the troops to Shirley Plantation in Virginia.  There he meets the lovely Angelina Rose and begins to feel some hope and the stirrings of love.  With her fair skin, Matt does not know Angie is a freed slave of mixed race.  She was given an opportunity to leave the south and start a new life for herself, but she did not take it because she has been working as a seamstress to earn the freedom of her deceased sister's illegitimate twins.  Matt knows nothing of this.  He only knows that he is falling in love with a mysterious woman, and there is something very suspicious about his father's claims of having no family.A lot of story is packed into this beautiful, redemptive novella.  It was a pure joy to read and reminded me of why I love reading historical romance novels!