A Time for Treason: An Novel of the American Revolution - Hardcover

Anne Newton Walther

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0967670306 ISBN 13: 9780967670300

Publisher: Tapestries, 2000

Synopsis

A Time for Treason begins in Virginia’s Tidewater region on the brink of the American Revolution and climaxes on the island of Bermuda a few months after the battles of Concord and Bunker Hill. Acting as an agent for her influential French constituency, Comtesse Eugenie Devereux must measure the patriots’ political intent while appearing to be a carefree guest at the Whittingtons’ elaborate Virginia plantation. Against a backdrop of thoroughbred auctions, a governor’s ball in Williamsburg, and an unforgettable night of slaughter and carnage, it is Eugenie’s measure that is taken. She flees to Bermuda, where she takes refuge with the Tucker family, determined to complete her mission. The Tucker patriarch is deeply involved in anti-British-government activity and draws Eugenie into his scheme. From the gentle landscape of the Virginia coast to the final moments of the historically significant event at Bermuda’s Tobacco Bay, this novel delivers passion, intrigue, and power on a grand scale, along with a hurricane, sailing ships, pirates, privateers, and romance - all set against an actual historical event that was one of the “sparks” that set off the American Revolution.

About this title

About the Author:

ANNE NEWTON WALTHER has a background in history and psychology. She is the author of Divorce Hangover, Not Damaged Goods and A Time for Treason. She has appeared on many national and local radio and television talk shows, including Oprah Winfrey, Sonya Live, and The Jenny Jones Show. She and her husband have raised five children and live in San Francisco.

From Publishers Weekly:

Nonfiction author Walther (Divorce Hangover) tries her hand at historical fiction with a tepid romance novel set before and during the American Revolution. The plot follows French countess Eug?nie Devereux as she is sent undercover to the American colonies by "the cartel of France's intellectual aristocracy," to try to determine whether the colonists will fight for independence from Great Britain, and whether Bermuda's citizens will also aid the cause. Eug?nie has a personal motive: the British killed her parents, and she wants revenge. Walther overdramatizes Eug?nie's undercover sleuthing, as the information she wants isn't really secret, but like a true spy, Eugenie charms the Whittington family on their Virginia plantation and then goes on to do the same with the Tucker family in Bermuda. All the men she meets fall hopelessly in love with her, but Eug?nie has eyes only for the British sympathizer and sea pirate Bridger Goodrich, with whom she engages in flowery love talk and has a lukewarm physical relationship. Walther effectively describes the Gunpowder Theft of 1775, in which Eug?nie helps conspire to steal gunpowder from the Bermudan governor. The author's extensive research is awkwardly evident in long, dry, textbook descriptions of historical events, which are poorly incorporated into the text. Even more annoying is her practice of conveying such information in dialogue, making for stilted and unrealistic conversation. However, Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty, or give me death" speech, brushes with Martha Washington and Thomas Jefferson, and painstaking details of colonial life do add historical color to the novel's overly ambitious scope. 10-city author tour. (June)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Tapestries
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0967670306
• ISBN 13: 9780967670300
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 454