This is a witty romance about Winter Reeves, a young woman forced by her grandparents into acting like someone she's not. She sides with the patriots during the Revolutionary War, but her Loyalist grandparents just want her to make a good match to bolster their reputation and connections. She's forced to pretend that she's dumb and doesn't think for herself, which ends up becoming a great cover for being a spy. She hears all kinds of juicy information she passes along, but when she meets Bennet Lane, he notices something doesn't quite add up. Bennet is in town to uncover the spy feeding information to General Washington and realizes courting a woman in high society is the perfect cover, if only he could talk to them! He decides to pursue Winter because there's nothing he loves more than a good puzzle. I really enjoyed the witty banter between Winter and Bennet. I loved their unique characters, the spy activities, the focus on prayer, and that God cares about our daily lives. It was interesting to read that Roseanna used a lot of real historical figures in her story and that the Culper Ring really existed and possibly still does! I'm definitely looking forward to checking out more of her books and can't wait for the next one in this series!
I received this book free from Harvest House Publishers in exchange for an honest review.
America’s First Spies by Roseanna M. White
When we think of
spies today, we usually conjure up images of debonair men in tuxedos,
or perhaps action heroes with razor-sharp instincts. We think of
technologically advanced gadgets, intimidating weapons, and carefully
plotted missions. But until recently, espionage wasn’t considered a
glamorous or even interesting profession. It was filthy. Shameful.
Would only be entered into by the lowest of the low—because how
could anyone who sold information possibly be trustworthy?
In the days of the
Revolution, General George Washington found himself in a familiar but
tight spot. He desperately needed to know what the British were
doing, and the information he got from military scouts was not
enough. There were, as always, those base creatures willing to sell
what they knew to the highest bidder, but Washington knew well how
inaccurate their information usually was. And whenever he did locate
good sources, it seemed the British always found them out and
arrested them. What he needed were trustworthy
spies. Honorable spies. Anonymous spies.
Washington turned to one of his officers with a proposition—if
Benjamin Tallmadge could put together a group of men who were
virtuous and could devise a system for them to remain undiscovered,
then he would be put in charge of all Patriot intelligence.
Tallmadge had never had a day of training in this sort of thing, but
he knew well the consequences of failure—his friend from Yale had
been hanged by the British when he was caught scouting out of
uniform. The penalty for espionage was, quite simply, death. So
secrecy was his top priority. And when one wants to keep a secret, to
whom does one turn but one’s closest friends?
Soon Tallmadge had put together his band of honorable men, men
willing to take a great risk to aid the country and the cause they so
loved. His primary intelligencer at the start was Abraham Woodhull, a
Long Island farmer who grew up in the same town as Tallmadge.
Woodhull had recently been arrested for sneaking produce to the black
market trade in the British-held city of New York, and he was happy
to be released in exchange for his assistance. He was given the
code-name Samuel Culper, and all correspondence pertaining to “the
business” called him such. Woodhull had a sister living in New
York, which gave him a perfect excuse to make frequent trips to the
city where he could observe British movement for Washington and
Tallmadge. But the trips were expensive and the expenses never
repaid, so he was soon looking for someone else to take over behind
enemy lines.
Woodhull had become well acquainted by that time with a Quaker
shopkeeper by the name of Robert Townsend. Townsend owned a popular
dry goods store, stock in a popular Loyalist coffee shop, and also
worked for a newspaper—all of which put him in a perfect position
to overhear sensitive information from the masses of soldiers. Dubbed
Samuel Culper, Jr., Townsend joined the Culper Ring and became its
star. Here was a man of integrity, one who reported solid facts
without opinion, without exaggeration, without fear. Here was a man
with his pulse on British New York.
Here was a man with an anxiety disorder as yet unnamed, which he
referred to as “black moods.” A man who spent much of his life
governed by nerves, by fear, by melancholy. A man we today would deem
a most unlikely hero. Yet it’s the information he passed along time
and again that gave the Patriots the edge they needed to win a war.
Other members of the Ring included a die-hard sailor who was such an
adventurous, robust character that he refused to use any code name.
He was Caleb Brewster, he said to his childhood chum Tallmadge, and
would be nothing else. Caleb Brewster the fisherman, the sailor, the
soldier, and now the transporter of information. He was the one who
took the messages from Long Island, across the pirate-infested sound,
and to Patriot territory. Where he put them into the hand of Austin
Roe, a farmer-cum-soldier from the same Long Island town.
They had only a tossed-together code that Tallmadge devised, one that
would have been easily cracked. A handful of men willing to take
risks. And a recipe for invisible ink that could only be developed
with a specific counter-agent, which saved their necks time and
again. But they had a will, a faith, and a determination. And most
importantly, they had a bond of friendship that guaranteed that most
important tool of all—anonymity.
Though they operated for years under the very noses of the British,
the Culper Ring was never discovered. The Redcoats knew there were
spies among them and sought them out relentlessly, but never once did
they stumble upon the truth of the agents’ identities. The Culpers
remained, till the end of the war, General Washington’s most
trusted spies. And so they redefined the very word. No longer was it
a badge of shame—they had made it into a badge of honor.
And because they were protected by bonds of blood and friendship,
they remain so shrouded in mystery that no one is quite sure what
became of them after the Revolution...or if perhaps their
predecessors still walk among us today.
No comments:
Post a Comment