The Bride Fair, by Cheryl Reavis

I started The Bride Fair, by Cheryl Reavis late last night.

Plot summary:

Union military occupation commander, Max Woodard, has returned to the small Southern town where he was once a prisoner of war. The war is over, and he has absolutely no love for the place or the people. There is nothing these so-called ex-Rebels can do to make up for the suffering he endured in the Confederate prison, but he still wants reparation, and he will start with the Rebel girl, Maria Markham. Maria can't bear the thought of having yet another Yankee officer billeted in the house. She despises them all, and with good reason. She knows Colonel Woodard's history. She recognizes his animosity immediately, and she returns it in kind. Even so, he is always watching her-- as if he somehow knows she has something to hide.

Posted later...

I'm done with The Bride Fair. That was a quick read. It was ok, I guess, but a B at most.

On the plus side, it had two characters who were very decent people, nice and dignified. On the minus side, I never cared much about them, especially the heroine. Maybe this was because the author truly succeeded in making them products of their time, so I never felt I knew them. Yes, I liked them, but I always felt far away from them.

The tone of the book was quite dark. Nothing bad happens, really, they're just recovering from the bad thing that's happened, but there's still suffering. This could have been a great story, if the author had succeeded in making her characters a bit more alive. The only ones that were alive were Joe and Jake, and I wanted to kill them. ;-) They were the typical hellion children, and I really don't know what they were doing in this story.