Celebrate Lit / October 24, 2024

River of Peril

About the Book River of Peril

Book: River of Peril

Author: Sandra Merville Hart

Genre: Christian Historical Romance

Release date: October 15, 2024

Amnesia stole his memory, and now he’s fighting for the wrong side.

Orphaned and alone at sixteen, Felicity has found solace in serving others as a volunteer nurse. When she discovers her Confederate soldier beau, Luke Shea, among the wounded in her ward, her worst nightmares come true. Luke’s shrapnel wound has stolen his memory, leaving him with no recollection of their love or his past. As Felicity struggles with the loss of the man she once knew, she turns her attention to the service of her broken country.

But the more she learns about the brutal war, the more she realizes she can no longer stay silent.

She becomes a Union spy, plunging herself into danger.

When Luke Shae awakes in a hospital with no memory of the last five years, he’s shocked to learn he’s been fighting against the Union he once so strongly supported. When he learns of his past courtship with his nurse, Felicity, he struggles to understand the man he was and what happened in those missing years. Determined to atone for his Confederate past, Luke also joins the Union cause as a spy.

As danger lurks at every turn, only a Divine hand can not only protect their lives, but give them a second chance for love and the future they both crave.

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My Thoughts on River of Peril

River of Peril is part of a fun series about Civil War Spies. If you’ve had the pleasure of reading one you’ll know you need to read them all. This is book five in the series. Please do yourself a favor and read all five books. Start with book one and work your way through. There’s going to be at least one more book in the series.

Okay. I grew up doing Civil War reenactments. And at them, I would be a nurse. So the main character being a nurse really made me want to read the novel. I’m an actual nurse now. The advancements in medicine since the Civil War. Wow. That’s all I can say. But also so many of those advancements were made during the war.

Now add in a man with amnesia. A man who happens to be the fiance of the nurse. A man who does not remember her or who he is. That has to hurt. Once Felicity sees more about the war and what is happening she decides to be a spy for the Union. She also has to deal with her fiance being unable to remember her.

This book read quickly. The characters are amazing. And I loved reading it! You definitely need to read these novels!

I have voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book which I received from Celebrate Lit. All views expressed are only my honest opinion. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC regulations.

About the Author of River of Peril

Sandra Merville Hart, award-winning and Amazon bestselling author of inspirational historical romances, loves to discover little-known yet fascinating facts from American history to include in her stories. Her desire is to transport her readers back in time. She is also a blogger, speaker, and conference teacher.

More from Sandra

“History will never know how indebted it is to folks like you in ending the war.” ~ River of Peril

People spied on their government, their soldiers, and their neighbors during the Civil War. Union spies in the South lived dangerously. Every day citizens, including enslaved and free black spies, became heroes to speed the war’s end.

Secret messages were sewn into hems, vests, and coats. Cyphered messages were hidden in bodices, hoop skirts, trees, hats, styled hair, books, custard dishes, hollowed-out eggs, and even in vaults with dead bodies. Raised/lowered shades and clothes hanging on a line might also be clues for spies.

Some spies were already actors.

Others disguised themselves to deliver secrets and to protect their identity. There were female spies who disguised themselves as men. If they could manage to remain anonymous, it saved them from their neighbors’ retaliation during and after the war. This was especially true in the South because the North emerged as victorious.

Many spies were caught during the Civil War and often imprisoned for days or weeks, up to a year. Confederate spies could sign an Oath of Allegiance to the United States to be released from Union prisons. Both sides executed spies.

For reasons already discussed, history doesn’t record most of Mississippi’s spies.

Two Mississippi spies, Robbie Woodruff and Philip Henson, didn’t slip into obscurity.

Robbie Woodruff was a courageous farm girl who fetched Confederate messages from town and hid them in a hollow stump for couriers. Philip Henson, one of the Union Army’s greatest spies living in the South, was captured and imprisoned for several months.

Key characters are spies for the Union in River of Peril, Book 5 in my Spies of the Civil War Series. The spies in my Vicksburg portion of the series (Books 4 – 6) are fictional. The stories show the type of challenges faced by historical spies.

My research for this novel began with a trip to Vicksburg, Mississippi.

I was greatly inspired by the battlefield, the museums, and the people in the historic city. That inspiration—and a whole lot of research!—led to the writing of Streams of Courage, Book 4, River of Peril, Book 5, and Tides of Healing, Book 6.

Avenue of Betrayal, Book 1, is set in the Union capital of Washington City (Washington DC) in 1861, where a surprising number of Confederate sympathizers and spies lived. Boulevard of Confusion and Byway to Danger is set in Richmond, the Confederate capital in 1862. Actual historical spies touch the lives of our fictional family. The heroines in Books 1 – 3 are two sisters and their cousins.

Another set of characters begins with Book 4, and three friends are the heroines in Books 4 -6.

Through both real and fictional characters, this series highlights the activities spies were involved in and some of the motives behind their decisions.

I invite you to read the whole Spies of the Civil War Series!