Wind of the Spirit
In book three of the American Patriot series, Elizabeth Howard continues posing as a Tory by day, and transforming into a male Rebel spy at night. In her breeches role, she escapes capture with the rest of the Rebel troops after their defeat after the Battle of Brooklyn. But Elizabeth’s main preoccupation is her sweetheart, General Jonathan Carleton, who was sent West to treat with the Indians and hasn’t been heard from for months. Elizabeth joins an expedition to the Ohio country to find him, only to learn that Jon, now the Shawnee war chief White Eagle, may not be so eager to return to the white world.
I haven’t been able to “buy” Jon’s triple change of allegiance. He begins as a British officer in the first book, changes to the Rebel side, and then once among the Shawnee, fights the white settlers he was formerly defending as a Rebel officer. Hochstetler lets the reader inside Jon’s head, but I still didn’t find the situation believable. Some purple prose passages may prove distracting: “he at last surrendered to slumber.” A positive is that the series is set in one of the less “sexy” time periods for historical fiction.
