About the Book
Book: Texas Divided
Author: Sherry Shindelar
Genre: Christian Historical Romance
Release date: March 25, 2025
Click here to get your copy!
My Thoughts:
What happens when the person you thought you rescued is more of a prisoner than before? That is the reality that hits Devon Reynolds when he returns back to Texas as a Yankee spy. The young woman whom he thought he rescued from the Comanche, Beth also known as Morning Fawn, is a prisoner on her uncle's plantation. She is always threatened with drugs and being put into an asylum if she does not control herself, except that she just wants to go back to her Comanche family. She is determined, but she is always caught when she tries to escape.
Devon has been through a lot, like the death of his wife and unborn child. If he can help Morning Fawn while helping the Yankees he will do all he can. The Civil War has been going on for a while and I found it interesting how important cotton was to Texas. It was like gold and the Confederates needed it desperately.
Morning Fawn is a strong woman. She lets her feelings sometimes take control, but I was rooting for her to get out of the situation she found herself in. I am not sure she would have continued to thrive in her Comanche family, but she certainly wasn't with her uncle's. I am glad Devon worked so hard to rectify his mistake.
This story was atmospheric of the Texas culture back then with plenty of danger, extending forgiveness, and the chance to begin anew when the opportunity arose. This was a great addition to this series.
I was provided a copy of this novel from the author. I was not required to post a positive review, and all views and opinions are my own.
About the Author
More from Sherry
The Cotton Road
I loved the opportunity to tie the Texas frontier and the Civil War together in Texas Divided, the second book in my Lone Star Redemption series.
I have been an avid student of the Civil War for a couple decades. However, until I started researching for Texas Divided, I had no clue that the Yankees ever invaded Texas. But they did in November 1863. Why? It was because of cotton. By 1863, the Federal blockade of the Confederate coastline was fairly secure, and Texas became the golden gateway for funding the Confederacy.
Cotton from Arkansas, western Louisiana, and east Texas traveled the Cotton Road. This dusty trail ran from the railroad terminus in Alleyton, TX (about seventy miles west of Houston) by way of King’s Ranch near Corpus Christi to Brownsville and across the Rio Grande to Matamoros, Mexico, the largest cotton market in the world during the war. In regards to commercial activity, it rivaled pre-war New Orleans or Baltimore.
A young teamster wrote that from the watchtower at King’s Ranch, the main stop on the way to Matamoros, he could see hundreds of wagons on the road at one time, a long train of dust rising up as they traveled toward Brownsville and the Rio Grande.
At some points the trail was almost a mile wide due to traffic, and more than one hundred miles of it was desert with no water. Puffs of cotton clung to the sagebrush and cacti along the way and lingered for years after the war.
When the cotton reached Matamoros, it was loaded onto steamboats and/or wagons owned by Mexicans and transported to the mouth of the Rio Grande at the Gulf of Mexico. International ships from Britain, France, and other countries hovered there, sometimes hundreds at a time, waiting to fill their hulls with cotton. And the Yankees couldn’t stop them. If a Federal ship fired on a British, French, Mexican, or ship of another nationality, it could have been considered an act of war.
By 1863, cotton, which had sold for .10 cents a pound in 1860, now sold for as much as $1.89 a pound, and one bale averaged 450 – 500 pounds. The money made on the sale of cotton was the financial bloodline of the Confederacy. For example, in just one week in August, twenty thousand pounds of gunpowder arrived in Brownsville, purchased with proceeds from the sale of cotton.
That’s why the Federal Army invaded Brownsville in early November 1863. Their mission was to stop or at least seriously hinder the cotton trade. Doing so could save lives on the battlefield and perhaps bring an earlier end to the war.
The Yankees reached the city without any resistance. However, they found a meager one hundred and fifty bales on the Texas side of the river and could only gaze at the more than ten thousand bales stacked along the Mexican wharves. The Rebs had moved or destroyed everything of value.
The invasion lasted for several months and forced the Confederates to improvise and find new trails for the cotton shipments, hauling the loads via San Antonio to Eagle Pass and Laredo. Unfortunately, the Yankees only netted a hundred or so bales here and there.
Cotton continued to reign until the war efforts in the East bled the Confederacy dry. But for those few months at the end of 1863, hopes were high, especially amongst the two regiments of Texas cavalry fighting for the Union, Texans who abhorred the Confederacy and who had left Texas to avoid being forced into the Reb army. These men returned with the Federal troops in November 1863 to restore Texas to the Union and wreak havoc on the Cotton Road.
Lieutenant Devon Reynolds is one of these Texans, loyal to the Union, and determined to do his part to rescue Texas from the grip of the Confederacy. Except in his case, he trades his Yankee uniform for that of a Confederate and dons an eye patch, operating as a spy and saboteur. But his life becomes complicated and his mission uncertain when he runs into Morning Fawn, the woman he kidnapped from the Comanche eighteen months before. As far as she’s concerned, he ruined her life by sentencing her to her uncle’s plantation. Can he complete the mission and right the wrong? Texas Divided is a story of redemption, faithfulness, and perseverance. The characters come to an end of themselves and discover that God can make a way where there was no way.
Blog Stops
Debbie’s
Dusty Deliberations, May 20
Texas Book-aholic,
May 21
Blossoms
and Blessings, May 22 (Author Interview)
Pause for
Tales, May 22
Locks, Hooks
and Books, May 23
Truth and Grace
Homeschool Academy, May 24
Artistic
Nobody, May 25 (Author Interview)
Happily
Managing a Household of Boys, May 26
lakesidelivingsite,
May 27
Books
You Can Feel Good About, May 28
Jodie Wolfe –
Stories Where Hope and Quirky Meet, May 29 (Author Interview)
For Him and My
Family, May 30
Holly’s Book
Corner, May 31
Stories By Gina,
June 1 (Author Interview)
Book
Butterfly in Dreamland, June 1
Bizwings Book
Blog, June 2
Giveaway
To celebrate her tour, Sherry is giving away the grand prize of a $50 Amazon gift card!!
Be sure to comment on the blog stops for extra entries into the giveaway! Click the link below to enter.
http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/00adcf54224