Review: The Monmouth Summer
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 1, 2014
The Monmouth Summer by Tom Vicary deals with the Protestant uprising near the end of the seventeenth century to support the Duke of Monmouth, the oldest of the illegitimate children of Charles II in his bid to overthrow that monarch's Catholic brother James II.  The rebellion was supported by the puritan dissenters of England, who were mainly non aristocratic farmers and artisans.  Participating in this rebellion are two members of a puritan family, Adam Carter and his daughter Ann who has been caught up in the conflict after delivering horses to the rebels.  Adam has joined partly for his religious beliefs and partly to quiet his long held belief that he is a coward.  Ann though not an active combatant is equally conflicted.  She has been courted by the aristocratic Rob who has offered to make her his mistress and the handsome but rather priggish shoemaker to whom she has become betrothed..  During the short-lived rebellion both have to make important life or death decisions.  The author has a knowledge of the history of the times as well as of the rather narrow and harsh beliefs of those unfortunates who threw in their lot with Monmouth.  He writes and presents his characters as believable persons.  It is a complex book but a satisfying one.