Historical

Title: No Good Like It Is
Author: McKendree R. Long lll
Genre: Historical Fiction
Reviewer; Bonnie Toews

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1450580785

1858, Fort Gibson, Indian Territory. 2d Lieutenant Dobey Walls meets and bonds with veteran Corporal Jimmy Melton. As the Civil War begins, they leave to join the 8th Texas Cavalry in Houston, then take part in the first and the final charges of the Army of Tennessee. Between those events, they ride with Nathan Bedford Forrest, play an honorable role in the Fort Pillow Massacre, harass Sherman with Shannon's Raiders, and visit the second best brothel in Atlanta. As surrender looms, they're released to search for Dobey's long-missing family in the Texas Panhandle. Their efforts are hampered by destitute farmers, lonely widows, dangerous militia, freed slaves, and runaways, who increase their numbers and excitement. In the process, they save a quadroon and her daughter from Yankee deserters who have stolen a Union payroll. This act of mercy brings them romance but puts Pinkerton detectives and a renegade lawman on their trail. Confederate Cherokees and Cheyenne Dog Soldiers add to the chaos.

Title: Tullykillane, 1941
Author: David Anderson Westwood
Genre: Historical Fiction
Reviewer: Terry L. Shoptaugh

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): B005AZ5FKU

A young American, who only signed on as a seaman to forget the humiliation of his football career's disastrous end, is shipwrecked in neutral Ireland three months before Pearl Harbor. He soon becomes entangled with the IRA and the Nazis, but he's determined to get his revenge.

Title: Mossingdene
Author: David Andrew Westwood
Reviewer: Terry Shoptaugh
Subcategory: Historical Fiction

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): B005E90HW8

Fifty thousand Americans and their hardware parked in a rural English community of a thousand villagers, just a grudging step away from the Middle Ages, on the eve of the invasion of Europe. An effective recipe for mayhem, sex and espionage.

Title: Valdinato, 1943
Author: David Westwood
Genre: Historical Fiction
Reviewer: Betsy Beard

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): B006PW43EQ

The story begins in New York, but since the central character, Ennio, an Italian-American pastry chef, decides he should sign up, the action soon moves to the invasion of Italy. He becomes a cook with a company moving north from Naples, village by village, toward Rome. Meanwhile Lucia is working the family farm in the Liri Valley below the Abbey of Monte Cassino. Ennio and his friends are stopped short by the Germans at their Gustav Line, of which the Abbey forms a crucial part. Lucia’s farm is bombed, and she and Ennio are soon involved personally in one of the worst battles of WWII.