Sissy! is a novel set in 1862-1863 and deals with Jessica Radford’s revengeful fury when her parents are murdered by a brutal slave catcher. Disguised later as a male soldier on a Tennessee battleground of the Civil War, Jessica is about to kill the wrong man. But she is challenged when she confronts Sissy, a guardian angel of a slave girl the Radford family had adopted. This is a story of compassion and forgiveness during an incredible era of hatred and violence. Sissy! is also the story of two male slaves who hunger for freedom and one free black man who still feels the pain and torment of all other slaves who are still being denied their freedom.
"The Civil War, which started in “Bleeding” Kansas, comes to life in this book. Sissy! is about compassion and forgiveness in an incredible era of hatred and violence... Sissy! brings you into the hearts and minds of people who shaped Kansas history … Sissy! makes the era of Bleeding Kansas, the Underground Railroad, and the infamous Quantrill raid come alive for the reader.” Rebecca Phipps, Director Douglas Country Historical Museum
Read PageOnelit.com's Interview with Tom Mach at http://www.pageonelit.com
ForeWordreviews.com, January, 2004
"In addition to his expertise on Civil War history, the author does a magnificent job of characterization."
Product Description:
In Sissy!, author Tom Mach brings the slavery issue up close and personal for the reader, looking at the Civil War through the eyes of slaves who want to fight for freedom in that war. "Bleeding" Kansas and the horrible events that culminate in the infamous Quantrill raid--a 19th century terrorist attack on innocent civilians--come to life in Sissy!, a sensitive and troubling novel about compassion and forgiveness in an incredible era of hatred and violence. The novel opens in 1857 with an Underground Railroad rescue of a slave girl. War breaks out, and in 1862, a Lawrence, Kansas, woman, Jessica Radford, follows a path of vengeance when she finds her parents murdered and Nellie, an adopted former slave girl, missing and possibly killed as well. While three of the border ruffians who did this deed are hung, the leader, Sam Toby, escapes. Obsessed with abolishing slavery and seeking revenge for these murders, Jessica, disguised as a male soldier on a Tennessee battleground, is about to kill the wrong man. But she is challenged when she confronts Sissy, Nellie’s guardian angel.
Sissy! is also the story of two male slaves who hunger for freedom and one free black man who still feels the pain and torment of all other slaves who are still being denied their freedom. While Sissy! ends with Quantrill's raid of Lawrence, it includes battle scenes in Perryville, Hoover’s Gap, Stones River, and Island Mound—the site where the first black slaves died in the Civil War while serving under the flag of the 1 st Kansas Colored Infantry, started by James Lane.
Sissy! brings you into the hearts and minds of people who shaped Kansas history—and the history of this country…people like James Lane, Colonel Martin, General Rosecrans, …newspapermen like John Speer, who was not afraid to tell the ugly truth about slavery… unknown heroes who worked through the Underground Railroad…brave women who disguised themselves in order to fight alongside men …and monsters like William Quantrill who thought nothing of committing terrorism, killing innocent civilians in a defenseless town. The reader of Sissy! will feel the heartbreak and tenacity of the men and experience the courage and sacrifice of those remarkable women in that bygone era.
Read PageOnelit.com's Interview with Tom Mach at http://www.pageonelit.com.