Like a thousand suns...: Read my #BookReview of The Cotillion Brigade by Glen Craney #BlogTour #CoffeePotBookClub #HistoricalFiction @glencraney @maryanneyarde

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I simply adore novels that depict strong women, even more so when the story is based on actual people. The Cotillion Brigade tells the story of a woman who broke all the rules of convention and propriety to ensure that her town would be in a position to defend itself from the Union Army. While all of the able men are fighting to preserve their beliefs in the Confederate Army, Nancy “Nannie” Colquitt Hill Morgan takes up arms and raises a female militia to defend their town and families.

I thought Nannie's story was well narrated and it certainly made for a very compelling read. It is hard to understand the mindset of those who owned slaves, but I could understand Nannie's determination to be in a position where they could defend themselves from the "enemy". After all, who knew what the Union's Army would do if they entered the town. And, although at times, I found Nannie's character rather irritating, I also found her story endlessly fascinating.

To give balance to this novel the author follows Oscar Hugh LaGrange. Hugh was a farmer who was given an opportunity to broaden his horizons. He soon becomes an abolitionist. When war breaks out he joins the Union Army and he excels at being a soldier, quickly rising through the ranks. Huge's character fascinated me as he was both light and darkness. I thought Hugh's character really drove this story forward.

All of the characters in this novel were incredibly realistic in the telling, and the author has certainly does his research when it comes to the historical backdrop. I thought this novel is a wonderful example of historical fiction at its very best.

Georgia burns.

Sherman’s Yankees are closing in.

Will the women of LaGrange run or fight?

Based on the true story of the celebrated Nancy Hart Rifles, The Cotillion Brigade is an epic novel of the Civil War’s ravages on family and love, the resilient bonds of sisterhood in devastation, and the miracle of reconciliation between bitter enemies.

“Gone With The Wind meets A League Of Their Own.”

-- John Jeter, The Plunder Room

1856. Sixteen-year-old Nannie Colquitt Hill makes her debut in the antebellum society of the Chattahoochee River plantations. A thousand miles north, a Wisconsin farm boy, Hugh LaGrange, joins an Abolitionist crusade to ban slavery in Bleeding Kansas.

Five years later, secession and war against the homefront hurl them toward a confrontation unrivaled in American history.

If you would like to read this book then there are several shops where you can purchase the novel. They are as follows:

A graduate of Indiana University School of Law and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Glen Craney practiced trial law before joining the Washington, D.C. press corps to write about national politics and the Iran-contra trial for Congressional Quarterly magazine. In 1996, the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences awarded him the Nicholl Fellowship prize for best new screenwriting. His debut historical novel, The Fire and the Light, was named Best New Fiction by the National Indie Excellence Awards. He is a three-time Finalist/Honorable Mention winner of Foreword Magazine’s Book-of-the-Year and a Chaucer Award winner for Historical Fiction. His books have taken readers to Occitania during the Albigensian Crusade, the Scotland of Robert Bruce, Portugal during the Age of Discovery, the trenches of France during World War I, the battlefields of the Civil War, and the American Hoovervilles of the Great Depression. He lives in Malibu, California.

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