What I learned reading Founding Brothers by Joseph J. Ellis: I didn’t know this: John Adams was adamant that the new nation needed a strong central government. Thomas Jefferson was adamant that the new government did not swallow up the perquisites of the states. Doesn’t that sound familiar? Obama vs. Boehner. (Hope that’s spelled right because I don’t want to look it up.) Democrats vs. Republicans. Most everybody vs. Tea Partiers.
Ellis talks about other issues as well as personalities during the Revolutionary Era and the years following the war. Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, Madison, Burr. Ellis did seem to assume I understood the difference between Tories and Whigs, and by the end of the book, I did. John Adams, Pres #2, is very real to me now. I would love to sit down and have a chat with him. Likewise Jefferson, though I expect I would be intimated by him. He is not quite the perfect being I’d always imagined and which the folks giving tours at Monticello would have us think, but he was still a fascinating man. What these folks accomplished! And I can hardly get the laundry done because I keep forgetting about it between one load and the next.
Ellis also wrote American Sphinx, an acclaimed bio of Jefferson. I’ll get around to reading that, too. Right now I’m pretty intrigued by the Plantagenets.
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About glcraig
Gretchen Craig’s lush, sweeping tales deliver edgy, compelling characters who test the boundaries of integrity, strength, and love. Told with sensitivity, the novels realistically portray the raw suffering of people in times of great upheaval.
Gretchen was born and raised in Florida. She’s lived in climates and terrain as diverse as the white beaches of the Gulf Coast, the rocky shores of Maine, and the dusty plains of Texas. Her awareness of place imbues every page with the smell of the bayous of Louisiana, the taste of gumbo in New Orleans, or the grit of a desert storm.
Rich in compelling characters and historical detail, Always and Forever is a sweeping saga of Josie and Cleo, mistress and slave. Amid Cajuns and Creoles, the bonds between these two remarkable women are tested by prejudice, tragedy, and passion for one extraordinary man. Gretchen’s first novel won the Colorado Romance Writers Award of Excellence for Mainstream with Romantic Elements and was chosen as an Editor’s Pick in the Historical Novel Society reviews.
Ever My Love, winner of the Booksellers Best Award from the Greater Detroit Romance Writers of America, continues the story of Cleo and Josie’s families, of their struggle for principle, justice, and love in a world where the underpinnings of the plantation culture are crumbling.
Crimson Sky, inspired by the pueblos, mountains, and deserts of New Mexico, evokes the lives of people facing neighboring marauders and drought. Now the march of Spanish Conquistadors up the Rio Grande threatens their homeland, their culture, and their entire belief system.
Gretchen Craig 