The story of the American Revolution is the story of a people at war with themselves and each other. Caught up in what Thomas Paine called the American crisis, American colonists made decisions that often had nothing to do with the fight for independence from England or the loyalty to king and country.
No Small Thing follows the men and women as they chart a path toward an uncertain future, from the sloops of Breeds Hill where rebel and regular engaged in a bloody test of wills, to a desperate gamble launched across the frozen Delaware River on Christmas day, 1776.
For Anthony Carter, a young blacksmith’s apprentice from Framingham, Massachusetts, the call to arms on the morning of April 19, 1775 was a chance to set aside his childhood and take his place among the men of his community as an equal.
The opportunity afforded Captain Anton de Chevalier by the French foreign minister to return to the Americas and report on the condition of the American army besieging the British at Boston is seized upon for reasons that are very personal.
Wounded during the assault on Breeds Hill, Lieutenant James Keating, an officer in the 23rd Regiment of Foot, finds the experience of war far different than what he had thought it would be.
Ian McPherson, a Scot who first saw battle in 1745 following the banner of Prince Charles Stuart, finds he has little choice but to fight to defend the new life he and his Irish born wife have made for themselves along the frontier of colonial Virginia.
Lady Katherine Trent, a most unconventional woman who oversees a mercantile empire in colonial New York City, finds herself torn between her loyalty to her cousin, James Keating, and her need to break with a social order that has no place for a woman determined to live as she sees fit.
Thomas Shields, a half-pay officer and veteran of the French and Indian War married to a wealthy New York heiress, see the war as an opportunity to once more take to the field and make a name for himself as a soldier. To his only son, Edward, the fight for freedom has little to do with the patriot dream of breaking from England, it is a chance to assert his own independence from two parents who are determined to mold him into something he is not.
For them the war is more than a rebellion, it is a civil war that pits rebels and loyalists alike against their neighbors, their friends, and all too often, members of their own family. Each finds they must decide not only where their loyalties lie, but what price they are willing to pay to for the cause they have attached themselves to.
Genre: Historical
No Small Thing follows the men and women as they chart a path toward an uncertain future, from the sloops of Breeds Hill where rebel and regular engaged in a bloody test of wills, to a desperate gamble launched across the frozen Delaware River on Christmas day, 1776.
For Anthony Carter, a young blacksmith’s apprentice from Framingham, Massachusetts, the call to arms on the morning of April 19, 1775 was a chance to set aside his childhood and take his place among the men of his community as an equal.
The opportunity afforded Captain Anton de Chevalier by the French foreign minister to return to the Americas and report on the condition of the American army besieging the British at Boston is seized upon for reasons that are very personal.
Wounded during the assault on Breeds Hill, Lieutenant James Keating, an officer in the 23rd Regiment of Foot, finds the experience of war far different than what he had thought it would be.
Ian McPherson, a Scot who first saw battle in 1745 following the banner of Prince Charles Stuart, finds he has little choice but to fight to defend the new life he and his Irish born wife have made for themselves along the frontier of colonial Virginia.
Lady Katherine Trent, a most unconventional woman who oversees a mercantile empire in colonial New York City, finds herself torn between her loyalty to her cousin, James Keating, and her need to break with a social order that has no place for a woman determined to live as she sees fit.
Thomas Shields, a half-pay officer and veteran of the French and Indian War married to a wealthy New York heiress, see the war as an opportunity to once more take to the field and make a name for himself as a soldier. To his only son, Edward, the fight for freedom has little to do with the patriot dream of breaking from England, it is a chance to assert his own independence from two parents who are determined to mold him into something he is not.
For them the war is more than a rebellion, it is a civil war that pits rebels and loyalists alike against their neighbors, their friends, and all too often, members of their own family. Each finds they must decide not only where their loyalties lie, but what price they are willing to pay to for the cause they have attached themselves to.
Genre: Historical
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Used availability for Harold Coyle's No Small Thing