British Revolution

Rick Atkinson, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning An Army at Dawn and two other superb books about World War II, has long been admired for his deeply researched, stunningly vivid narrative histories. Now, he turns his attention to a new war, and in this book about the American Revolution recounts the first 21 months of America’s violent war for independence. From the battles at Lexington and Concord in spring 1775 to those at Trenton and Princeton in winter 1777, American militiamen and then the ragged Continental Army take on the world’s most formidable fighting force.

Since the fall of Charles Town, Sarah Mahon has found success as a spy for the partisan militia, until Jack Ashford comes ashore. She soon learns that she cannot judge the enemy by the color of his uniform, because a willing man can be made to change his colors by the right woman. It is a discovery that her rebel father does not share. As she is courted by Lt. Jack Ashford of the Royal Navy, those she thinks are allies actively sabotage the relationship that would take Sarah away from the Low Country she longs to escape. A rash act of rebellion meant to cement an engagement will destroy her...

James Fenimore Cooper was America's first successful popular novelist. Son of the prominent federalist William Cooper, founder of the Cooperstown settlement, James was educated at Yale in preparation for a genteel life as a federalist gentleman. After his father's death in an 1809 duel, Cooper quickly squandered his inheritance, and at thirty was on the verge of bankruptcy. He turned to writing but his first book, Precaution (1820), was a failure.