With the 150th Anniversary of the Battle at Gettysburg and the Siege of Vicksburg, New York Times Best Selling Author, Heather Graham, is revisiting one of her favorite time periods - The American Civil War. This time, however, she has compiled biographies of some of her favorite real-life characters of the period. We hope you'll enjoy her gift to you in SOME WORE BLUE & SOME WORE GRAY. And feel free to comment in the review section if there are people you would be interested in reading about from the Civil War. Ms. Graham sees this as a living, growing document and is certain to add to it as time goes by. Enjoy! And then when you want to see where all this love of history took her, check out her three Bantam novels ONE WORE BLUE, ONE WORE GRAY, and AND ONE RODE WEST.
New York Times and USA Today best-selling author Heather Graham majored in theater arts at the University of South Florida. After a stint of several years in dinner theater, back-up vocals, and bartending, she stayed home after the birth of her third child and began to write, working on short horror stories and romances. After some trial and error, she sold her first book, WHEN NEXT WE LOVE, in 1982 and since then, she has written over one hundred novels and novellas including category, romantic suspense, historical romance, vampire fiction, time travel, occult, and Christmas holiday fare. She wrote the launch books for the Dell's Ecstasy Supreme line, Silhouette's Shadows, and for Harlequin's mainstream fiction imprint, Mira Books.
Heather was a founding member of the Florida Romance Writers chapter of RWA and, since 1999, has hosted the Romantic Times Vampire Ball, with all revenues going directly to children's charity.
She is pleased to have been published in approximately twenty languages, and to have been honored with awards frorn Waldenbooks. B. Dalton, Georgia Romance Writers, Affaire de Coeur, Romantic Times, and more. She has had books selected for the Doubleday Book Club and the Literary Guild, and has been quoted, interviewed, or featured in such publications as The Nation, Redbook, People, and USA Today and appeared on many newscasts including local television and Entertainment Tonight.
Heather loves travel and anything have to do with the water, and is a certitified scuba diver. Married since high school graduation and the mother of five, her greatest love in life remains her family, but she also believes her career has been an incredible gift, and she is grateful every day to be doing something that she loves so very much for a living.
I struggle between rating this three and four stars. This wasn't exactly what I anticipated. I wanted a good look at the complexities of the Civil War, particularly with divided families on both sides of the conflict. This is more of a who's who of the Union and Confederate armies. While not useless information, this isn't what I was hoping for.
The merit of this pamphlet-sized book on its own finally settled it on three stars. There were several fascinating bios in here of figures I'd never heard of -like female spies for the Confederacy- but I wanted a little more detail on their efforts and exploits in the war and a little less background. It held only a brief summary of each person, and for the familiar names like Lincoln and Grant, most of the information is well-known. I did find the repetition of information in the bios of figures who crossed paths a little irksome, but this could be because I read it straight through.
On the whole, a good starting point for piquing your curiosity about the men and women of the Civil War, but not much information given, especially about the prominent hardship of brother fighting brother on the battlefield.
Author Heather Graham (who wrote a great trilogy about the Civil War; see below for the titles) takes the reader on a survey of some important Civil War personalities. The first set was a group of Union sympathizers, and then she gave equal time to the Southern side.
I thought the stories were just what I was interested in: their early life, their contribution to the Civil War, marriage and children, final years after the war.
Please note: A history buff would be bored by these summaries.
North: Clara Barton, George Armstrong Custer, Julia Dent Grant, Ulysses S Grant, Joseph Hooker, Abe Lincoln, Mary Todd Lincoln, William Tecumsah Sherman.
South: Belle Boyd, Jefferson Davis, Varina Howell Davis, Rose Greenhow, Robert E Lee, Jeb Stuart. Then the author added Scarlett O'Hara, a fictional character about the Civil War. In contrast to some reviewers, I thought Scarlett was an interesting way to finish the short book and I didn't have a problem with it. I was surprised but Scarlett's role showed how difficult the Civil War was for Southern women.
Cameron’s Saga: Civil WarTrilogy 1. OneWore Blue (1991) 2. And One Wore Gray (1992) 3. And One Rode West (1992)
I enjoy history however I don't read books about history, so when I saw this book, I took a chance. Surprise me how informative it was, especially about the wives and women of history. I was aware of the military men of history and knew some of their story. What I did not know was how much the women in their lives played a part. I would definitely recommend this book as a quick glimpse into a turbulent time in America history.
Almost a dnf book. The author wound facts together with amateur writing. This book appears to have lacked editing. The author also restated facts when she wrote about spouses rather than choose other events/topics to discuss when writing about the two spouses. I have a MA in U.S. history and have to say that while overall the facts were fine, the presentation left a lot to be desired.
Loved this book! It provided insight into many of the famous people of that time. The Civil war has always interested me. I loved that the book finished with Scarlett O'Hara.
Was hoping for some more obscure personalities and enjoyed the pieces on the wives but didn't need to read short bio's about, Sherman, Grant, Lincoln, Hooker, Jeff Davis, Robert E. Lee, J.E.B. Stuart, they have all been covered enough.
Some Wore Blue & Some Wore Gray by Heather Graham is a surprisingly good, though rather short book. It's really just a collection of brief biographies of some of the most notable figures of the Civil War, so it's definitely no Gone With the Wind; but if you have even a passing interesting in this period of American history, you may find it to be a very informative and entertaining read all the same.
The formatting in the Kindle edition isn't especially well done, and the manuscript really could have used a good thorough editing, but other than that, I found reading this book to be more than worthwhile. Okay... I said the book is no Gone With the Wind, but it does end with a biographical entry about author Margaret Mitchell and her famous literary creation, Scarlett O'Hara. Not that Scarlett was a real person mind you, but somehow, I agree with the author, that including Scarlett and Ms. Mitchell in the text was not only a very wise, but quite entertaining way to wrap up this slim volume.
The legends that took part during the War of Northern Aggression are much researched. This is another book that offers insight into their lives and families. For sure it is still a debated topic. Whether I will live to see it finally settled is another matter. As a descendant of The Revolutionary War and one of the Confederate War, I sometimes wonder how things would be different if Stonewall Jackson would not have died and Jeb Stuart would have been able to deliver much needed intelligence to General Lee. What a sore was inflicted on our nation. The last person mentioned is Margaret Mitchell the author of Gone With The Wind. I found Scarlett's behaviour so far from other true women of the South it was sad. Upon reading Ms. Graham's book, I was delighted to find more facts about people of the war.
Very disappointed. I've read other books by this author and adored them. I'll read anything Civil war- related, so I was excited about this book. I really couldn't believe who were chosen for the biographies - Scarlett 'O Hara?! I was looking for my favorite generals and I got a fictional character instead. Also, in the biographies of both Lincoln & Davis' wives, information was repeated from their husbands' biographies. (Guess if I perused the table of contents prior to reading, i could have passed on it.)It needs editing as well - there were 2 places that listed the date as 1900s instead of 1800s. I know this book was free so maybe I shouldn't be so judgmental, but I've read many flawless free works.
As a recently-published writer of Civil War fiction, I wasn't expecting to learn as much as I did from these brief biographies. It clearly shows the ambiguity in the sentiments of each of these complex historical figures as they sorted out difficult decisions. The author validated the conflicting approaches, often unconscious, in the same character to issues that are easily viewed as moral contradictions today.
I had no idea this was a book of mini biographies of Civil War personalities. I did like it as it gave me , the reader, a chance to get a brief snapshot of many people who were important, both to the north and to the south, during the Civil War. Ms Graham does a masterful job here and I enjoyed her unique presentation. She is also a good writer of other genres, too.
It was a basic collection of overviews of the lives of various civil war era personalities. I could get the same information from a selection of biographies written for elementary school - aged children.
an informative book containing the biographical sketch of ten or so civil war contemporaries. half wore blue, and half gray. folks like Jeb Stuart, Mrs Grant, Mrs Davis, General Sherman and the like. easy read. informative.
A short book of short Bio's of mostly leaders from the Civil War. There are a few that had some other significance to the civil war like spies and wives of the leaders. An okay read but nothing of what I was expecting or hoping it would be.
this book is a quick review of people from the Civil war.it allowed me an opportunity to read about individuals from that era and decide if I wanted to read more about anyone of them in the future.
Ms. Graham gives interesting insight and information on each person she chose to write about. If you're interested in Civil War information and history this is a good read.
One of the other reviews was dead on. Read like a collection of grade school book reports. Unfortunately, it doesn't make me want to search out other books by Heather Graham.