A review by debs4jc
Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War by Karen Abbott

3.0

The stories of four women who were involved in spying or soldiering during the US Civil War are told - in a narrative non-fiction format. The book switches from woman to woman as it follows their stories chronologically. At first this made it a bi hard for me to follow and I would think "now which one is this?" when it switched to someone new. But after a while I got to know them pretty well and had no problems telling them apart. Abbott's style of narrating their actions and words (often direct quotations from journals and diaries) as if she's writing a story instead of dry history made the story very interesting and the women seem like people I could relate to, not far off figures in history. The bravery of keeping secrets and trying to aid "the enemy" while your neighbors are watching your every move really came to life for me. The pathos of having to care for a child while in prison, the desperate circumstances that would cause you to don men's clothing and join the army, and the desire to make your name known by boldly defying the enemy all came across quite vividly.
Parts of the book I read in print, and parts I listened to on audio. The book is quite lengthy, and after an hour or so of reading the print version I would get a bit tired of it. But the audiobook narrator (Karen White) did an remarkable job of dramatizing the dialog and I found it very enjoyable to listen to her performance. Aside from it's length, I found this an intriguing look at the lengths women went to in serving their countries, the cause, or their own ends during a brutal war. I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in history, especially from the female point of view.