OCTOBER 2014 - AudioFile
Being involved in the Civil War proved to be a mental burden for two of the four women profiled in this history. One spent time in an asylum, and another was known postwar as "Crazy Bette." Karen White's gentle voice creates a contrast between the traditional roles expected of women and the actualities of these women’s lives. The stories, such as a spy being taunted while in a prison cell and the daily anxiety of a Northern informer in Richmond, read almost like fiction or drama. White’s voice becomes coquettish or tough, depending on the story. Although this work concentrates on four specific women and their heroic parts in the war, the account offers glimpses into the lives of women in general on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
★ 05/26/2014
In this gripping book, Abbott (Sin in the Second City) tells the moving and fascinating story of four women who played unconventional roles during the Civil War: Belle Boyd, a boisterous flirt and Confederate spy; Rose Greenhow, a seductive widow also spying for the South; Emma Edmondson, who disguised herself as a man and enlisted in the Union army; and Elizabeth Van Lew, a wealthy spinster in the Confederate capital with Unionist loyalties. Meticulously researched and fluidly written, this book draws the reader in and doesn’t let go until the four heroines draw their final breaths. Abbott provides an alternate view of this tumultuous time in history by featuring previously untold stories of the impact women and civilians had on the war effort, and she brings these individuals fully to life, with their passion for their causes (Elizabeth for abolitionism, Rose for the Confederacy), personal flaws (Rose was racist and self-involved, Belle was impulsive and vain), and heartbreak (Emma by two different men, Belle for an opposing spy). For example, in an era when men had trouble even picturing women in pants, Emma Edmondson enlisted as a man in the Union army and saw action in her roles as both spy and nurse. In the end, Abbott tells a remarkable story of passion, strength, and resilience. (Sept.)
From the Publisher
Not for nothing has Abbott been called a ‘pioneer of sizzle history.’ Here she creates a gripping page-turner that moves at a breathtaking clip through the dramatic events of the Civil War.” — Los Angeles Times
“Engrossing…Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy is conscientiously researched and smoothly written and structured.” — Wall Street Journal
“A revelation... Abbott profiles four [women], sometimes weaving, sometimes stacking their stories together into a compelling narrative.” — USA Today (four stars)
“Eloquent… A riveting psychological inquiry and probing examination of the courage, incomparable patriotism, stamina, and agility of four women who repeatedly risked their lives to serve their citizenry... Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy [feels] like an operatic espionage novel, where deception, betrayal, love, and redemption are interspersed with gripping combat scenes and perilous rescues.” — Los Angeles Review of Books
“Karen Abbott’s Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy...is full of so many titillating dramas and details, you could be forgiven for periodically checking the back of the book to make sure it’s nonfiction.” — Christian Science Monitor
“Gripping... a remarkable story of passion, strength, and resilience.” — Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
“Compelling... Karen Abbott stitches together a patchwork narrative as complex as a pieced quilt, combining the colorful, unrelated tales of four women who fought in the Civil War as surely as Lee and Grant… [her] high achievement lies in her Augean compilation of published and archival material.” — Washington Times
“Abbott’s prose is vivid, especially when she writes about battles and the terrible costs they exact.” — Washington Post
“Karen Abbott’s powerful narrative is first rate American history about a fascinating, little-known chapter of the Civil War, as well as a compulsive, thrilling saga of espionage. Brilliant storytelling, highly accessible, and impossible to put down.” — Gilbert King, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Devil in the Grove
“Abbott…[reveals] in such vivid detail the extraordinary lives of women who involved themselves so dangerously in the Civil War. This is that rare work of history that reads like a novel — and a really good one at that — and in which the truth is more thrilling than fiction. ” — Michael Korda, NY Times bestselling biographer of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ulysses S. Grant, and T. E. Lawrence
“With this book, Karen Abbott declares herself the John le Carré of Civil War espionage—with the added benefit that the saga she tells is all true and beautifully researched.” — Erik Larson, bestselling author of Devil in the White City
“Liar, Temptress, Solider, Spy by Karen Abbott is a masterpiece of narrative storytelling, backed by impeccable research and extraordinary material. I was gripped by every page.” — Amanda Foreman, author of the award-winning best sellers Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and A World on Fire: A Epic History of Two Nations Divided
“Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy is a masterwork of suspenseful plots and unforgettable characters rendered in exacting, gorgeous detail-a brilliant new take on the heroines and villainesses of the Civil War.” — Lydia Netzer, author of the New York Times notable book Shine Shine Shine
“With Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy, Karen Abbott has taken history and written it with the eloquence of good fiction. Halfway through her book, I decided Ian Fleming could not have invented better spies…nor have written about them with any more suspense.” — Robert Hicks, New York Times bestselling author of The Widow of the South and A Separate Country
Thrilling, illuminating, heart-pounding. Liar, Temptress, Solider, Spy reads like a crackling espionage novel...Karen Abbott brings to vivid life four of extraordinary and audacious women, and runs glorious roughshod over all our traditional notions of the role of women in the Civil War. — Megan Abbott, Edgar-award winning and New York Times bestselling author of Dare Me and The Fever
“Beautifully written, meticulously researched, and paced like an edge-of-your-seat-novel—I love this big, ambitious, unstoppable book.” — Joshilyn Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of Gods in Alabama and Someone Else's Love Story
The subjects of Karen Abbott’s gripping story Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy leap up — and almost off — the page… an irresistibly good tale of Civil War espionage and a reminder that the heroes of our history are often found in the most unexpected places. — Deborah Blum, New York Times bestselling author of The Poisoner's Handbook
“Karen Abbott’s Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy is the kind of page-turning book you can get so absorbed in that you keep forgetting it’s nonfiction.” — Bustle.com
USA Today (four stars)
A revelation... Abbott profiles four [women], sometimes weaving, sometimes stacking their stories together into a compelling narrative.
Washington Times
Compelling... Karen Abbott stitches together a patchwork narrative as complex as a pieced quilt, combining the colorful, unrelated tales of four women who fought in the Civil War as surely as Lee and Grant… [her] high achievement lies in her Augean compilation of published and archival material.
Christian Science Monitor
Karen Abbott’s Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy...is full of so many titillating dramas and details, you could be forgiven for periodically checking the back of the book to make sure it’s nonfiction.
Los Angeles Review of Books
Eloquent… A riveting psychological inquiry and probing examination of the courage, incomparable patriotism, stamina, and agility of four women who repeatedly risked their lives to serve their citizenry... Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy [feels] like an operatic espionage novel, where deception, betrayal, love, and redemption are interspersed with gripping combat scenes and perilous rescues.
Michael Korda
Abbott…[reveals] in such vivid detail the extraordinary lives of women who involved themselves so dangerously in the Civil War. This is that rare work of history that reads like a novel — and a really good one at that — and in which the truth is more thrilling than fiction.
|Los Angeles Times
Not for nothing has Abbott been called a ‘pioneer of sizzle history.’ Here she creates a gripping page-turner that moves at a breathtaking clip through the dramatic events of the Civil War.
Gilbert King
Karen Abbott’s powerful narrative is first rate American history about a fascinating, little-known chapter of the Civil War, as well as a compulsive, thrilling saga of espionage. Brilliant storytelling, highly accessible, and impossible to put down.
Washington Post
Abbott’s prose is vivid, especially when she writes about battles and the terrible costs they exact.
Wall Street Journal
Engrossing…Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy is conscientiously researched and smoothly written and structured.
Los Angeles Times
Not for nothing has Abbott been called a ‘pioneer of sizzle history.’ Here she creates a gripping page-turner that moves at a breathtaking clip through the dramatic events of the Civil War.
Wall Street Journal
Engrossing…Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy is conscientiously researched and smoothly written and structured.
Washington Post
Abbott’s prose is vivid, especially when she writes about battles and the terrible costs they exact.
Joshilyn Jackson
Beautifully written, meticulously researched, and paced like an edge-of-your-seat-novel—-I love this big, ambitious, unstoppable book.
Erik Larson
With this book, Karen Abbott declares herself the John le Carré of Civil War espionage—with the added benefit that the saga she tells is all true and beautifully researched.
Bustle.com
Karen Abbott’s Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy is the kind of page-turning book you can get so absorbed in that you keep forgetting it’s nonfiction.
Deborah Blum
The subjects of Karen Abbott’s gripping story Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy leap up — and almost off — the page… an irresistibly good tale of Civil War espionage and a reminder that the heroes of our history are often found in the most unexpected places.
Robert Hicks
With Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy, Karen Abbott has taken history and written it with the eloquence of good fiction. Halfway through her book, I decided Ian Fleming could not have invented better spies…nor have written about them with any more suspense.
Megan Abbott
Thrilling, illuminating, heart-pounding. Liar, Temptress, Solider, Spy reads like a crackling espionage novel...Karen Abbott brings to vivid life four of extraordinary and audacious women, and runs glorious roughshod over all our traditional notions of the role of women in the Civil War.
Lydia Netzer
Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy is a masterwork of suspenseful plots and unforgettable characters rendered in exacting, gorgeous detail-a brilliant new take on the heroines and villainesses of the Civil War.
Amanda Foreman
Liar, Temptress, Solider, Spy by Karen Abbott is a masterpiece of narrative storytelling, backed by impeccable research and extraordinary material. I was gripped by every page.
OCTOBER 2014 - AudioFile
Being involved in the Civil War proved to be a mental burden for two of the four women profiled in this history. One spent time in an asylum, and another was known postwar as "Crazy Bette." Karen White's gentle voice creates a contrast between the traditional roles expected of women and the actualities of these women’s lives. The stories, such as a spy being taunted while in a prison cell and the daily anxiety of a Northern informer in Richmond, read almost like fiction or drama. White’s voice becomes coquettish or tough, depending on the story. Although this work concentrates on four specific women and their heroic parts in the war, the account offers glimpses into the lives of women in general on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2014-06-01
Four Civil War subversives—who happened to be women—garner a lively treatment.Having previously written on Gypsy Rose Lee (American Rose) and the Everleigh brothel in turn-of-the-century Chicago (Sin in the Second City), Abbott finds some sympathetic, fiery characters in these four women who managed to aid their causes, either North or South, in their own particular ways. Belle Boyd, a 17-year-old farmer’s daughter from Martinsburg, Virginia, which had voted three to one against secession, declared her loyalty to the Southern cause by shooting a Yankee soldier who dared to touch her mother, and thereby took advantage of the confusion and movement of troops to slip through the lines and pass secrets; she was in and out of jail during the course of the war. Emma Edmonds, having left the family farm in 1859 to reinvent herself as a man selling Bibles door to door, offered herself to the Union cause two years later, serving mostly in a medical capacity. According to Abbott, Edmonds was one of 400 women, Northern and Southern, who posed as men. Rose Greenhow, a comely widow and grieving mother of some means in Washington, D.C., fashioned herself as a spy for the Southern cause, learning code, passing messages wound in her servants’ hair and inviting all kinds of late-night gentlemen callers; Greenhow would eventually go abroad to drum up sympathy for the Confederacy in England and France, turning her charms on Napoleon III and others. A wealthy Richmond spinster, Elizabeth Van Lew had deep Yankee roots in her family and was unique in that she cultivated intricate subterfuge right under her Southern neighbors’ noses—e.g., passing Confederate troops movements to Gen. Benjamin Butler. Abbott proceeds chronologically, navigating the historical record through quotes and personal detail.Remarkable, brave lives rendered in a fluidly readable, even romantic history lesson.
