True Colors

By Erin Rainwater

Book Overview

Her war is not with enemy soldiers but with battles of the heart and the will. Only truth can conquer this type of foe. And truth is in short supply. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1484991206
• ISBN13: 9781484991206
• Release Date: May 2006
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.98 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Gold Medal Winner for historical fiction from Military Writer's Society of America 2009 Book Awards

Award-winning novelist Erin Rainwater knows how to keep the reader engaged. She breathes life into her story by creating characters that demand your attention from the first line of the book to the last. In "True Colors" Cassie Golden is a nurse working in a hospital in Alexandria, Va. while the Civil War rages on. The reader can't help but fall in love with Cassie as she tends to young soldiers who have been injured in battle. The author's background as an Army nurse during the Vietnam War helps lend credence to this story that focuses on a young and beautiful nurse who is kidnapped and held prisoner in a confederate prison in Richmond, Va. This book is well written and the author's storytelling abilities keep the reader turning pages. While the story focuses on Cassie Golden, we are swept up in this tale of love, intrigue, espionage, murder and kidnapping at a time when our country's loyalties were divided between the North and the South. This is a smart, intelligent and entertaining book. I laughed, I cried, I winced, I learned, I jumped in fear at times, and I prayed that Cassie would some day get out of prison and be reunited with a handsome Major named Michael Byron. But is Michael really a major in the Union Army or a colonel working for the Confederacy? That's one of the key story questions that kept this reader turning pages and cheering Cassie on. Praise to author Erin Rainwater and her unforgettable character, Cassie Golden, who has found a home in my heart. I highly recommend this book and that's why I'm giving it 5 stars! Kathleen M. Rodgers author of "The Final Salute:Together We Live On" MWSA silver medal winner 2009

The Best Historical Fiction book I've read in years!

TRUE COLORS follows the adventures of Cassie Golden, a nineteenth century Pennsylvania woman who volunteers to work as a nurse in a military hospital in Alexandria, VA. She falls in love and marries an intelligence officer in the Union Army. Before their marriage can be consummated, he is called away for a secret assignment. Cassie continues working with the wounded while she waits for her soldier to come home. Then, without warning, she is kidnapped by Southern spies and taken to Richmond, the Capital of the Confederacy. There, she is shocked to see her new husband, now dressed in the gray uniform of a Confederate Colonel. This isn't just a romance set against a Civil War backdrop. It's historical fiction in the most intriguing sense of the term. Rainwater's characters interact with real people - like Abraham Lincoln and Colonel Thomas Rose who escaped from the infamous Libby Prison in Richmond. Cassie Golden and Michael Byron's stories are interwoven with the smaller, lesser-known human events of the era and the larger well-documented incidents like the Battle of Gettysburg. This approach allows the reader to experience war viscerally rather than as an intellectual exercise. Every piece of this novel works to create a single impression - from the author's character naming technique to the clever way that she reveals information to the audience to the colorful cover and large font layout. The research behind the book is solid. The plot is multi-faceted and the characters are believable. For example, despite the deep philosophical divides, Cassie and Michael find much to admire in their complex Confederate adversaries. However, for the sake of the drama there are pure heroes and pure villains too. There is the dastardly, all-powerful and artfully named Sergeant Powers who torments Cassie throughout her captivity. Then there is President Abraham Lincoln who is raised to the level of sainthood when viewed through Cassie's idealistic eyes and the gratitude of freed slave Maudie. Ms. Rainwater has created a book that plays in reader's head like a rainy-day movie. She is a consummate artist and TRUE COLORS is highly recommended! Joyce Faulkner President of Military Writers Society of America Author of IN THE SHADOW OF SURIBACHI, LOSING PATIENC, & FOR SHRIEKING OUT LOUD Co-Author of SUNCHON TUNNEL MASSACRE SURVIVORS

You Won't be Able to Put it Down

If you have been despairing of finding a seat-of-the-pants thriller that doesn't include dead bodies and gratuitous sex, one that will keep you up all night in an old-fashioned page-turner, don't despair. "True Colors" is just such a book. From the opening line, all the way through the ups and downs of hero and heroine, you will not want to stop reading until you reach the end. AND just when you think you've got it figured out -- beware -- Rainwater masterfully weaves red herrings and dead ends throughout the entire book, leading the reader along in a game of chase. When you think you can't hold your breath one more minute, relax -- the very satisfying ending leaves the door wide open to entice you into her follow-up novel, The Arrow that Flieth by Day.