You did it! We figured this one out! It is a truth universally acknowledged (by me for certain) that the Bitchery pretty much knows everything, and really, it's true. Scroll down to see the solution for this HaBO - and many thanks!
This HaBO comes from DiscoDollyDeb, who is searching for this historical romance:
Greetings Bitchery! DiscoDollyDeb here and I’m looking for a historical romance I think I read in the late 1980s or early 1990s, although it may have been published earlier. I don’t read much historical romance now, but the reason this book has stayed with me is that it introduced me to something I had no idea about: during the Civil War, the Confederacy had a base in Canada from which they planned attacks on cities in the North. (Many years later, I saw a movie from the 1950s on TCM that included this Confederates-in-Canada plot, but the book I’m looking for was my first knowledge of this.) Also, I seem to remember a lot more about the first half of the book than the rest, so it might have been a book with a great set-up and not so much in follow-through. Here’s what I remember (or, at least, what I think I remember):
The heroine is a northerner. She’s a recent widow, traveling by train to her father-in-law’s home (Buffalo? Niagara?). The father-in-law is rich, powerful, politically-connected, possibly a senator (also, a horrible person). The heroine is ambivalent about going to live in his home, but she doesn’t have many options. The hero is a Confederate soldier, based in Canada, who has been injured in a raid gone wrong. The authorities are searching for him on the train, so he surreptitiously sticks a pistol in the heroine’s side and demands she pretend to be his wife and tell anyone who asks that they are a couple traveling together. (Yeah—it’s a pretty old-skool plot.) The heroine does all she can to escape, including leaving a note in the train’s latrines, but when the hero risks his life to save a drowning child, the heroine’s feelings change. She takes the now almost delirious and very sick hero to a boarding house where they check in as a married couple and she nurses him back to health and eventually, after he recovers, they do “consummate their love.” My memory of the rest of the book is much vaguer. The heroine goes to her father-in-law’s house and somehow he drugs or poisons her, but, before she passes out, she manages to hang a shawl or a sheet from her window to warn the hero of danger. Then somehow either she or the hero gets smuggled into (out of?) Canada in a coffin full of ventilation holes. And that is where my memories of the book end.
I don’t care for making Confederate soldiers heroes, but I’m curious if the surrounding premise of the story was as interesting as I remember.
This led me down a Wikipedia rabbit hole.
Fascinating!!! I will add this to the TBR pile just for the historical stuff.
This almost sounds like something Katherine Grayson might have written as Elizabeth Kary. I know it’s not Let No Man Divide, which I’ve read, but it could be From This Day Onward (which I haven’t read). I know she’s used Canada as a setting in some of her other books. If nothing else, for a blast from the past go look at the old UK cover of This Day Onward, which shows a rapturous heroine wrapped in a flag. I remember this author’s books (whether written as Kary or Grayson) being pretty good, the historical elements well done and the scopes epic.
@RND: Thank you! I just checked FROM THIS DAY ONWARD on Amazon and that is it! Once I read the synopsis, I even remembered that, yes, the hero’s name is Ryder (possibly a bit anachronistic). From Amazon:
While the War Between The States consumed our nation in flames of bitter opposition … a single, fateful moment brought two strangers, two enemies, together on a northbound train … JILLIAN WALSH, a beautiful Yankee widow, never expected to find herself at the mercy of a Confederate soldier — an escapted prisoner of war. But now, she dared to risk her life for his freedom. RYDER BINGHAM was as handsome as he was dangerous. Though he captured Jillian’s heart, his need to avenge his brother’s death swept both their lives into a reckless turmoil. Bestselling author Elizabeth Kary presents her most stunning achievement — a vast American tapestry of love and war, filled with the colorful events and courageous men and women who changed the course of history. Rich and compelling, it is the unforgettable story of two unique destinies, eternally bound.
As usual, the Bitchery comes through. Mark this one SOLVED!
Wow. I used to live a stone’s throw from the former Capitol of the Confederacy and hadn’t heard about the Canadian connection.
Added this title to my list for my next visit to the book exchange. Good work, RND!
Thank you — I did not know that about the Confederacy in Canada and looked it up. Super interesting, I think. To summarize, for others — it turns out it was “Canada East” aka “Lower Canada” (which is roughly the southern part of modern Quebec, not the English-speaking part of Canada/Ontario, etc) that sympathized with the Confederacy. Raids were launched into Vermont from Montreal. I did not know any of this! I hadn’t realized that maybe as many as 50,000 “British North Americans” (Canadians) enlisted in our Civil War too — mostly for the Union, thankfully. Slavery was illegal in Canada, and Canadian sentiment was strongly anti-slavery.
My spouse has always told me the simplistic story that Confederation (the formation of Canada as we know it) occurred in 1867 because the Brits wanted to strengthen Canada as a counterweight to American strength/military post Civil War, but I hadn’t realized how much of a role Canada played — I had the impression is was just reactive. We’ll have an interesting dinner discussion tonight!
You want your minds blown about more Canadian – US history we never learned? Look up Fenian Raiders. Between 1866 – 1871, Irish Republicans based in the US raided into Canada, attacking British army forts along the border, to try to get the Brits to withdraw from Ireland. Many of them were Civil War veterans. The Fenian Raids have always struck me as a good topic for a “it’s not the Regency” historical.
(Marry a Canadian, learn all sorts of new things … and don’t EVER get one started on who won the War of 1812. Ever.)
FWIW, I grew up in this part of Canada, and Jefferson Davis actually lived in my hometown for a couple years while he was out on bail and awaiting his trial for treason. (The trial never happened). So, yeah. History!
It obviously isn’t the book which was requested, but I do remember reading a synopsis for a book in the White Oak Chronicles which was written by a Canadian author, and a family of Confederate supporters take refuge in the titular home. I have yet to read any of the installments in this series, so I can’t speak to the quality.