Kids love mysteries, and Regina Silsby's Secret War by Thomas J. Brodeur is a wonderful story that integrates history with fiction. Set in the time of the Boston Tea Party, this story involves a ghost, witchcraft, and sorcery.
Rachel Winslow, the daughter of a successful ship owner, finds herself mistakenly identified as a rebel during the protest and subsequently followed by British soldiers. Regina Silsby, a dead sorceress who is believed to pursue the living to their death, becomes Rachelís new identity while she fights for freedom.
The concept behind the story is wonderful and the heroine is strong and resourceful, yet this reviewer wonders if it can be considered a Christian teen novel with the inclusion of such occult elements and the absence of biblical foundations.
The author could have written a truly magnificent book if the Christian basis of the book was stronger. Not a bad book, but it could have been so much better. -- Tammy Hornbeck, Christian Book Previews.com
Not until she reached the back gate of her father's garden did she slow her pace. Through the shrubbery she bustled and climbed the woodpile to her window. Thrusting up the sash, she tumbled through the opening, gathered up her bed sheet ladder, and banged down the pane once more. After arranging the curtains she tugged off her wig and mask. "Well, that's that," she said with a smile. "indeed?" came a voice from behind her.
Pre-Revolution Boston walks a tightrope. Will the townsfolk continue to appease the king of England, or preserve the freedoms he is bringing more and more under siege? Regina Silsby seems to have taken up arms in defense of freedom. But how can that be? She has been dead for thirty years.