Book Excerpt:
"A Charles Town belle and a blockade runner ignite fireworks in more ways than one during the American Revolution.
To Anna Grace Laurens, the war is like a distant bad dream, until her family’s Charles Town plantation is burned and her parents murdered by those loyal to the king. She flees on horseback and leaps into the Cooper River to escape her pursuers.
As John Cooper Vargas sails his sloop down the river, he spots a woman diving into the water. After firing on the Tory raiders chasing her, he rescues her and offers to take her with his parents to an island hideaway for the duration of the war. But she has other plans, including revenge for her parents’ deaths. She insists he drop her off in Charles Town, even with the British planning a massive attack by land and sea to retake the city, the Pearl of the South.
John employs his sailing skills for the patriots, risking capture and death, but he enjoys his skirmishes with the British navy blockade to bring goods from the islands to aid the cause. When Charles Town falls to the British, he docks his ship in a secret cove and joins Francis Marion's militia. This decision lands him wounded on a harbor prison ship where more men die than on the battlefield.
Anna Grace braves the deprivations, first of a city barricaded against the British, and then one surrendered and ruled by fists of iron under the English flag and injustice. At great risk to her, she spies on the British officers garrisoned in her house and seeks a way to rescue John before it's too late. As both American and English armies gather near Yorktown, Virginia, for a pivotal battle, can John and Anna's love for each other and their faith in God preserve them and help forge a new nation?"
Title: The Petticoat Spy
Author: Elva Cobb Martin
Publisher: Wild Heart Books; 1st edition
Series: Charleston Brides Book 3
Reviewed By: Arlena Dean
Rating: 4
Review:
"The Petticoat Spy" by Elva Cobb Martin
My Opinion:
"The Petticoat Spy" was a historical read of the American Revolutionary War [1780] in Charles Town, later known as Charleston, SC. The story featured Anna Grace and Captain John Vargas, where we find the captain saving Anna as she was escaping from the British military who had killed her family.
As Anna Grace will go and live with a family from Charles Town, John will join the famous Swamp Fox in the military who 'provided a resistance force to harass the British supply lines.' From this war.. there will be 'Swamp Fox, spies and both sides of the conflict'...and those stories that give the reader quite a read of this horrible time in history.
The two [Anna Grace and John] will interact back and forth until she is asked to spy among the British for John, which was a dangerous thing to have done, especially if caught doing this. But with them starting to develop feelings for each other...of course, she wanted to help out in this situation.
The author gives the reader many historical details that make the read rather enjoyable but sad due to this wartime situation.
Even though there was a lot of sadness, the ending was sweet, giving the readers a good feeling about how the story will turn out. If the reader is looking for an adventurous historical read with a bit of romance, 'The Petticoat Spy' will give it all to you and more.
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