#TBRChallenge 2023: The Prisoner

The Book: The Prisoner by Cheryl Reavis

The Particulars: Historical Romance, Harlequin Historical #126, 1992, out of print, available digitally (self-published reprint with additional material added), first book in series

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: Reavis is a favorite and has both historical and contemporary romances in my keeper stash

The Review: I have had a used copy of the original Harlequin Historical edition in my print TBR stash for a very long time - where it languished, as books tend to do in my TBR, until finally here I am many years older with really crappy eyesight.  So when I decided that this was the book I was going to read for this month's Unusual Historical prompt, I downloaded the self-published edition available via Kindle Unlimited with the extra "lost chapters."  This is definitely an instance where 1) I would have liked this book better as a baby, less jaded, less cantankerous reader and 2) where the lost chapters should have truly stayed lost. More on that in a moment...

The book opens in 1865, during the final gasping days of the Civil War.  Union Captain John Howe has been in a hellhole prisoner of war camp in Salisbury, North Carolina, where conditions not great to begin with have rapidly deteriorated.  He's near starvation, sick, desperate and makes a run for it via a tunnel the prisoners have dug - his best friend getting left behind and presumed dead when said tunnel collapses. He has to make it to a house in town where there's a local war profiteer that will provide him with passes and a disguise to get north - except John picks the wrong house and gets saddled with a pretty young captive as a grand prize.

Amanda Douglas lives with her emotionally abusive minister father and loving stepmother.  Long story short, Amanda is paying for the sins of her mother.  She's home alone when John Howe breaks in and Daddy Dearest walks in on a situation that looks compromising enough that he jumps right to the conclusion that she's a whore no better than her mother.  Stuff happens, they eventually land at the profiteer's house, and now John and Amanda are on the run despite not liking or trusting one another even a tiny bit. Basically it's get me north to my family and I'll make sure you're not hung out to dry - and really, other than her stepmother, there's nothing for Amanda in North Carolina. She reluctantly chooses John.

First, let's start off with the good. Reavis has a way of painting pictures with words and creating a world that as a reader I can fall right into.  It's richly drawn without spending too much time in the weeds.  Her characters are also, generally, very interesting.  There's a number of secondary characters I really liked in this story, an army doctor and Amanda's stepmother being the most interesting to me.  Also, having read the second book, The Bride Fair, many years ago (and I loved it back then) - it was great to finally read about the guilt and baggage that the hero in this book has in regards to the hero of that second book.

So what's the problem?  Well, Amanda and John are what I call hot-and-cold-running characters - which means mood swings.  A lot of them.  Which yes, makes some sense given the circumstances of how they meet - but that doesn't make it any less exhausting.  Also, for a book with "lost chapters" included, the timeline of when John is delirious from sickness and fever and Amanda has to prop him up, lug him around through their travels, jumps ahead in time and leaves quite a few blank spaces. I was disappointed that none of the lost chapters addressed the gaps in that timeline.

There's also the small matter that this is a Civil War book and it's strangely apolitical. John refers to Amanda as "Reb" but Amanda is about as political as a potted fern - which honestly, I could almost buy into given she had lived her entire life up to that point in a home with an emotionally abusive father.  When that is your life, are you really going to think of much else outside of that bubble?

Eventually John gets home, Amanda finds out his family is kind of a big deal, there's a misunderstanding perpetrated by his overbearing mother (that John, even though he KNOWS what kind of woman his mother is, doesn't suspect she just might be behind the third act separation when Amanda runs off? Like really John?! Like, really?!?!??!).  Then there's a reunion, more drama, and then what is quite obviously the original final chapter.

Original cover

The "lost chapters" in the self-published version are all tacked on at the end of the original final chapter - and some of them are interesting because it does give the reader a bit more time to spend with the secondary characters.  Unfortunately it also gives the reader more time to spend with John and Amanda, which means another misunderstanding, which means another instance where she runs off, which means I now think that these two are one more misunderstanding away from imploding entirely.  This is also when the author includes some politics and honestly, staying apolitical would have been better. John is still in the Army and leading the occupying forces in Salisbury.  The idea being that he's now married to a local and things will go more smoothly (never mind most of the locals now consider Amanda a Yankee whore) and there's nonsense in there with Amanda telling John that the Southerners are conquered but should still be allowed to have their pride.

Look, do you know what Southern pride got us in this country?  Jim Crow among other things.  Apolitical was better, thanks.

So where does that leave us?  Well, I'd probably give the original version of this book somewhere around a C+ maybe?  John and Amanda just didn't really work for me as a romantic couple, but Reavis' world-building and secondary characters were on-point.  The lost chapters section?  Ugh, probably a D. They should have stayed on the cutting room floor, because if anything they made me believe less in Amanda and John as a viable couple.  Plus the politics in this section annoyed me.

Final Grade = Oh, who the hell knows, let's say C