Book Description

A THRILLING NOVEL OF COURAGE, LOVE AND TREACHERY DURING THE YEARS OF OUR COUNTRY’S BIRTH The desperate year of 1778. Philadelphia is occupied by the British. Not far away in Valley Forge the ragged and courageous army of George Washington is just coming through its bitter winter stand. Meanwhile the Continental Congress is being beleaguered by a number of officers and influential people to replace Washington as Commander of the patriot armies. At the center of this cabal is General Charles Lee. In this setting of intrigue and revolutionary passion, David Taylor has woven a sanguine and stirring narrative of young Captain Jonathan Kimball of Virginia, assigned to live as a servant in the house of Enoch Ladd, an imprisoned Patriot shipowner, and to spy on the British. With him in this enterprise is the lovely and daring Elizabeth Ladd, daughter of the household and a spy herself. Mutually suspicious at first, Jonathan and Elizabeth come to trust one another after each has been through some dangerous escapades. There is the time Elizabeth overhears some vital information at a masquerade ball she attends on a stolen invitation, and the time when Jonathan helps La Fayette out of a trap set by the British. With a wonderful insight into this exciting historical period Taylor tells of the British Fleet trying to evacuate the Delaware, of the bravery of Molly Pitcher, and the almost disastrous treachery of Lee. Climaxing the whole story is a blow-by-blow description of the illustrious Battle of Monmouth.