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[published by Mira Books, 1988 (ISBN 1-55166-078-4)]

Another romance -- I'm surprised how many of them there are with Southern Campaign settings -- but far more readable than the last couple I've stumbled over. The formula for this one is to take roughly two measures of Disney's Swamp Fox, mix in a measure of Lancaster's Phantom Fortress, then toss in a dollop of one of Shakespeare's cross-dressing comedies for variety.

The setting is South Carolina, from the autumn of 1780 through to roughly the end of 1781, and our heroine -- far more the focus of the book than her romantic interest -- is Samantha Chatham. She was in love with Brendan O'Neill, but her Tory father hated him -- more because he was Irish than because of his rebel leanings -- and, several months before the start of the book, killed him in a duel. When her father decides to marry her off to "one of Tarleton's officers", she opts to run away, so she chops off her hair, binds up her breasts, steals some boy's clothes, and as "Sam Taylor" is soon off running the swamps with Marion's brigade. And, in the best tradition of Shakespeare, over a few months of life in the woods, nobody notices the small fact that she's female, not even her future beau, Connor O'Neill (Brendan's brother).

Connor, a major under Marion, holds Samantha Chatham responsible for his brother's death, but soon ends up mentoring the "orphan" Sam Taylor, blithely oblivious to the "boy's" true nature until he (literally) falls right on top of her. While this clues him in to her gender, he still doesn't twig to her identity even though his mother and hers were the best of friends and he's known Samantha Chatham roughly her entire life. (This may go beyond Shakespeare into the realm of a disguise worthy of Clark Kent's glasses. But then Connor proves on several occasions that he's dumb as a post.) Anyway, even after he figures out she's female, Sam continues to hide her name, knowing how he feels about her family, but things between them get complicated. You've got to figure there's some truly odd gossip floating around Marion's campfires about the pair of them.

The book is more akin to the old Disney style of adventure than a modern romance, despite the odd bit of on-camera sex. It's light silly fun for the most part. Historically, it's somewhere between Disney and Dobein James, yet it still remains ahead of a number of novels meant to be taken far more seriously. (In fact, "Billy" James has a supporting role.) The prominent oopses tend to add to the entertainment level. For instance, I think the author installed a few superhighways in the backwoods, because people zip around this version of South Carolina awfully fast (though nothing on the scale of John Jakes' infamous 6-week-round-trip to England in Charleston). Presumably she got herself into this by setting up a bordello in Georgetown as the meeting place/crossroads for her various subplots, which necessitated getting all the various players to drop in for an evening, whether they be at Winnsboro or Snow's Island or Charleston.

Its most annoying weakness as a novel is the author's habit of setting up an obvious plot thread then abandoning it in some sort of careless anti-climax. She does it with both Samantha's father and her unacceptable suitor "Colonel" William Foxworth. (I put his rank in quotes because it is, obviously, a persistent typo throughout the book. It is stated quite clearly that he's an officer in the British Legion under Tarleton, so he's no more than a major, and probably a captain. Possibly the author thought captain was too lowly a rank for a dastardly villain and figured nobody would notice the Legion had entirely too many colonels in her universe.)

Foxworth, in particular, is set up to be a major Tavington-esque villain when he's first introduced then essentially abandoned as a player. His biggest addition to the story line, for me, is to provide a hilarious moment with respect to Sam's male disguise. Now, as I've mentioned, she has been successfully fooling Connor for months, even though he's known her from childhood. Before she ran away, Foxworth met her a few times at parties, yet the first time he sees her in drag, from a distance, he not only pegs her as female but recognizes her identity. I'm not sure if we count this as a point in favor of his intelligence or a singularly awkward plot device. If the former, it does him no good in the end since he reappears barely long enough to try a stupid plan and (hardly a spoiler in such a formula novel) meet a stupid death that doesn't even rate a wrap-up scene. (Poor Foxworth is probably off in some fictional afterlife, examining the fine print in his villain's contract to discover why he didn't even get a death scene and final soliloquy.)

Oh, and silly though it is I have to mention just one more historical oops. It made me just about choke from laughing, due to a conversation I had with Doc M months ago. One of the yardsticks by which Doc measures the badness of a historical novel is the usage of totally out-of-period names. It's a real annoyance button for her, and the example she always gives is the use of names which were invented and/or popularized by 1960s/70s soap operas: "Tiffany", "Brandy", "Brittany" etc. If you go back any earlier than that, those simply were not in use. While I have certainly read a lot of historical novels where the author didn't bother to vet his/her name choices against the time period, I can't say I've ever run into anything quite so in-your-face blatent as that. The occasional 17th century "Darla" perhaps, but never an 18th century "Tiffany" -- until now. Sure enough, no sooner do our hero and heroine (still in boy guise) drop into the previously mentioned Georgetown bordello than they're introduced to Tiffany, the working girl. Good grief!

In terms of Tarleton, Potter does casually trot out a couple of formula lines about Waxhaws, and she's made him "tall" again, but I think that the most utterly inaccurate statement she makes about him is "The colonel was well-known for his fondness for the ladies. It was probably his only weakness..." (p115) Only??? I think she missed a few. Anyhow, she gives lots of lip service to his nastiness -- and drags out the "Bloody Tarleton" tag, which is even more anachronistic than having her heroine start a campfire with a match -- yet whenever he's on screen he's pretty civilized, not to mention glib tongued and charming. I would say she's recreating John Sutton's portrayal in the same sense she's using the Leslie Nielsen version of Marion, but it's hard to picture the Disney Tarleton wenching it up in a bordello, which Ban gets to do here. (Definitely one of his accurate moments.) It's a pretty good portrayal, actually, provided one considers only what she "shows" the reader and ignores what she "tells."

So, overall, not a great book but a pleasant quick read for anyone who's into the genre.

[Thanks to Karen for pointing me at this one.]