Just Finished Reading: Enemy Women by Paulette Jiles (FP: 2003) [299pp] 

Missouri, November 1864. When the Union Militia arrested her father for aiding the Rebels his young daughter, Adair Colley had no option. She would travel with her younger sisters to the nearest Union Headquarters and ask for his release. She never thought that such an obvious plea for justice could lead her even further away from her family, her farm and everyone she loved. Accused of aiding Rebel forces with supplies and intelligence, Adair is sent to a woman’s prison in St Louis where she is interrogated by Major William Neumann who makes it clear that running a woman’s prison in the middle of a war is the very last thing he wants. Determined not to reveal what little information she possesses, Adair concocts a series of outrageous stories to play with and infuriate the Major. Surprisingly for both of them their game of cat and mouse leads to a growing romance. But falling in love across political lines is never going to be easy, especially when the Major finally achieves his long-standing aim and is assigned to a combat unit. Adair is left with only one option, to escape from prison, return home and seek out the Major once the fighting is over. 

I’m not exactly sure why – most probably from the cover to be honest – but I thought that the female protagonist was going to be a Native American woman. I guess I should have paid closer attention to the blurb on the back cover! But that was OK. Once I started reading, I was dropped into a well-drawn time and place and settled right in. The plot was a straight-forward one: girl finds boy, girl loses boy, girl hopes to get boy back after they both have adventures/side-quests. The two main characters are well drawn and believable and even the romance part – which I did find rather slow – was well handled. The character of Adair was feisty and smart so was fun to ‘watch’ as she argued with the often pleasantly bemused Major. The Major himself is also well drawn, and I rather liked him if somewhat less than Adair. They actually made a good couple and complimented each other well. There’s a brief action scene which I was impressed with, and I thought it was very well handled. But... despite ALL of that I thought this was a bit too slow for my liking. It was certainly well written; the plot was well constructed, and characterisation was more than adequate throughout but it never really ‘gelled’ with me. That might say more about me than the author or the book, but there we are.  

Despite my somewhat equivocal feelings towards it this is definitely an above average read and, no doubt, others will enjoy it much more than I did. I’ll give it a reasonable overall but still recommend it too – if it sounds like it's something that will appeal to you.