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[published by Pinnacle Books; 1998]

This fluffy little romance novel was a great disappointment to me. I think Ban would make a great third corner for a romance-novel triangle. He's a natural! Too bad the author didn't agree.

It's also too bad the author didn't do any research once she had decided to use him as a character. For starters, she is of the benighted opinion that Tarleton was an American, presumably because she'd heard some vague mention that his soldiers were Loyalists. Even though the novel takes place in Philadelphia during the winter of the British occupation, she plays him in full "Bloody Ban" mode. In fact, he's so bad-ass that even the Philadelphia whores are afraid of him. Her version of Banastre doesn't know John André (they were close friends), isn't involved in the theatrical troupe André organized (he was) and doesn't take part in the Mischianza (he was one of the Knights of the Burning Mountain). He does like to ride horse races, as did the real Ban, though in view of the overall presentation I suspect that this piece of verisimilitude is simply a random coincidence.

This book does have one gigantic, overwhelming good point: it isn't blindly partisan. Its hero is British, its heroine is Patriot, and the nobility or villainy of individual cast members isn't de facto defined by their political allegiance. Unfortunately, while I could wax rhapsodic over that at length, I can't think of anything else to say in its favor.

As Tarleton trivia it's a write-off for obvious reasons, though I did develop a sneaking fondness for the psychotic little nutbar who impersonates Banastre in the text. He gets the best line in the book.