I have to admit I was slightly disappointed at the end of this book. I like historical fiction and am interested in the civil war, but this was basically a love story set in the past. I suppose I should have suspected this when I saw the title, but I had recently read other books by this author which were much better than that. At once, I had predicted most of the storyline and was pretty disinterested until a certain scene which actually shocked me and practically gave this book its three stars because it was so moving. This book could have done with being written in the first person (which I'm pretty sure it wasn't) because the story never strayed from Alice and it might have helped the story hold my interest.

I do love this book. Of all the Civil War novels on my shelves (130 so far) this is my favourite. Turnbull manages to stay fairly neutral, and give a decent account of both sides. Alice is a real person not a cipher (a flaw with too many of these books). I'd also note it's the only book to bring the massacre at Naseby up front.

This is the second novel by Ann Turnbull that I have read and both have the historical setting of the English Civil War as a backdrop. A teen novel, Alice runs away with her first love and becomes a camp follower convinced her true love will marry her at the next town. Obviously this isn't going to happen and the story closely follows the brutality of war and the relationships of men fighting a war while their women follow them. An interesting read and one with a bit of depth to it too.