"Enemy women"

I have written before about the great book sale that takes place at my neighborhood library each month. It is staffed by volunteers and the books are NOT library rejects but donations from people in the area. Many times I run across best sellers or books by a favorite author or just a book I have never heard of before which looks promising.

I enjoy the book sale. I have always loved browsing in the library, but the book sale is even better. The proceeds go to our neighborhood library and they are used to buy books or equipment. And also, when I have finished reading one of my sale books I simply return it to be resold.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, the last day of the book sale, they featured an "all the books you can stuff in a plastic grocery bag for $5.00" sale. I already had about 6 hardback books in my plastic bag but I had room for one more and I spied a book, "Enemy Women," that peaked my interest mainly because it had a sticker that said "Read This" by "Good Morning America" So I said to myself,what the heck, I might like it, and in the bulging plastic bag it went.

I put off starting "Enemy Women" for some time but then one day with nothing else interesting to read that struck my fancy, I picked it up and started to read.

I could not put it down. One of the best books I have ever read.I finished it in about 2 days and one night I read until 2AM.


If you like historical novels that focus on the ordinary people in epic struggles, try "Enemy Women"

What have you read recently that you would recommend?




This review from "AMAZON.COM

"Enemy Women, the outstanding first novel by poet Paulette Jiles, leads us into new terrain, both geographic and historical, in the war between the states. Set in the Missouri Ozarks during the Civil War, Jiles's story focuses on the trying times of 18-year-old heroine Adair Colley. When a group of renegade Union militiamen attacks the Colley home, stealing family possessions, burning everything down, and taking away her father--an apolitical judge--Adair gathers the remnants of her clothes and mounts a rescue effort. Unfortunately, she is falsely accused of being a Confederate spy, a charge that lands her in a squalid women's prison run by a decent commandant embarrassed by his post. After he helps her escape, the two agree to seek out one another after the war; their separate, harrowing journeys and the evolution of each character throughout make for breathtaking action and powerful writing. Each chapter of Enemy Women begins with excerpts from historical testimony about this terrible period in the Civil War, when marauding soldiers pillaged and murdered whole families and communities at will. These documents add depth and resonance to Jiles's remarkable narrative."

And this from another reviewer on Amazon

"With researcher's eye Ms. Jiles has illuminated a little known aspect of Civil War history, the incarceration of women. Her prose is artful, describing a new leaf as "already as large as a squirrel's ear, " or a man with "a pair of jaws like church pews." Painful in its authenticity, poetically rendered, Enemy Women is a book that will not be forgotten"