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[Published by Popular Library, date unknown; copyright 1943]

In 1774, young Julian Day accompanies his father from England to Williamsburg, Virginia. His father is on his way to teach at a fledgling college in the colony, but he dies during the sea voyage, and Julian is left to fend for himself in the new world until he can earn enough money to pay for the passage home. He acquires a teaching post, begins to make friends, and is soon drawn into the politics of Virginia on the eve of armed rebellion. When radical politics explodes into open warfare, he finds himself torn between his own loyalties to his homeland and his ties of friendship to the rebellious colonists, including his best friend, St. John Sprague, who was also born in England but is totally committed to the cause of independence.

Dawn's Early Light is the story of Julian, St. John and the people close to them from Julian's arrival on the Virginia shore until the British surrender at Yorktown. In some ways the novel is massively dated -- its portrayal of happy Virginia slaves, content with their lives and loyal to their kind-hearted masters, is particularly wince-inducing -- but if you can simply accept it as a product of its era, it is an enjoyable read. The characters are well-drawn and easy to like, the story is well constructed and Thane has a rich descriptive style which brings the period to life. Many of the leading political lights of the rebellion, including Jefferson and Patrick Henry, appear along with the more common fighting men such as Marion, Greene, Lafayette and William Washington.

The book is meticulously researched, though again its date of publication shows in a few old chestnuts. (In Thane's view, Tarleton took his hand wound during the skirmish with Billy Washington at Cowpens.) A large chunk of the story is set during the Southern Campaign, with Tarleton as a frequent background presence who never steps into the limelight. Thane wastes no particular invective on him or the Legion, which is quite surprising given that she thoroughly blackwashes him in her non-fiction account on the revolution, The Family Quarrel. In here, though, she simply presents the Legion as "dreaded" which is certainly a fair evaluation from a rebel militiaman's perspective. This is not an interesting "Tarleton book" but it's a good "RevWar book" and an enjoyable historical novel in general.

It's the first volume of a multi-part "generation" epic. The next in line is Yankee Stranger set during the Civil War. There are more, but I haven't read them.