Book Review: Soldier's Heart by Tamera Lynn Kraft

Soldier’s Heart

Tamera Lynn Kraft

Historical novella, American Civil War

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Series: Murray Pura's American Civil War Series - Cry of Freedom , #13

ebook - .99
Kindle
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From the publisher:

After returning home from the Civil War, will his soldier’s heart come between them?
Noah Andrews, a soldier with the Ohio Seventh Regiment can’t wait to get home now that his three year enlistment is coming to an end. He plans to start a new life with his young wife. Molly was only sixteen when she married her hero husband. She prayed every day for him to return home safe and take over the burden of running a farm.

But they can’t keep the war from following Noah home. Can they build a life together when his soldier’s heart comes between them?

My review:

In July 1864 Noah Andrews is on his way home to Ohio after a three-year stint in the army of the North. A young man who’d married his sweetheart before leaving for war, he’d chosen not to reenlist. The last dreadful battle in the mountains of Georgia had been a nightmare he’d vowed to put behind him.

Trying to live down the hero’s welcome, Noah and Molly go to their farm, which she’d kept up during his absence. It was her home, too, a comfortable place where Noah had grown up. But something terrifying came home with Noah after the war. They called it soldier’s heart, and Noah’s shame at being unable to be the hero everyone considered him might be their undoing.

Phrases like, “they all tried to leave the train in one clump, as if…determined never to march in file again…” puts a face on often nameless facts and figures from this horrifying time in our history. In keeping his journal, Noah bled words onto the page…great writing!

Kraft’s careful attention to detail of events during the period, real-time additions of fact, add depth to this beautiful fictional account of a young soldier who makes it home, back to his bride and a new life, but has the fiercest battle yet to face. Recommended for those who love history of the creative non-fiction type.