Chenneville: An Epic Historical Fiction with a Revenge-Driven Quest, Experience a Deadly Pursuit in the Reconstruction Era
Consumed with grief, driven by vengeance, a man undertakes an unrelenting odyssey across the lawless post–Civil War frontier seeking redemption in this fearless novel from the award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of News of the World.
Union soldier John Chenneville suffered a traumatic head wound in battle. His recovery took the better part of a year as he struggled to regain his senses and mobility. By the time he returned home, the Civil War was over, but tragedy awaited. John’s beloved sister and her family had been brutally murdered.
Their killer goes by many names. He fought for the North in the late unpleasantness, and wore a badge in the name of the law. But the man John knows as A. J. Dodd is little more than a rabid animal, slaughtering without reason or remorse, needing to be put down.
Traveling through the unforgiving landscape of a shattered nation in the midst of Reconstruction, John braves winter storms and confronts desperate people in pursuit of his quarry. Untethered, single-minded in purpose, he will not be deterred. Not by the U.S. Marshal who threatens to arrest him for murder should he succeed. And not by Victoria Reavis, the telegraphist aiding him in his death-driven quest, yet hoping he’ll choose to embrace a life with her instead.
And as he trails Dodd deep into Texas, John accepts that this final reckoning between them may cost him more than all he’s already lost…
BUY THE BOOK
Community Reviews
What’s it about?
Union soldier John Chenneville has been laid up for almost a year in a field hospital recovering from a head wound. When he is finally released, the war is over and tragedy awaits him at home. Upon his return to St. Louis he discovers that his beloved sister, along with her husband and infant son, have all been murdered by a former Union soldier named A.J. Dodd. Dodd has been acting as a deputy and no one has bothered to investigate the crime of a former Confederate soldier and his family. John knows he is not strong enough to exact vengeance yet but he has a plan.
What did it make me think about?
The tumultuousness of the past.
Should I read it?
So I would put Historical Fiction into two categories- Mass Market (lighter and easy to read) and more literary Historical Fiction. This book falls squarely in the latter category. Paulette Jiles has a very lyrical way of writing and I have enjoyed both Enemy Women and News of the World. However her plots develop a little slower and her characters are more complex. I would highly recommend this book to readers who like a more literary approach to Historical Fiction. John Chenneville was an intriguing character and this road novel takes us on a journey through a very interesting time and place- reconstruction in the South.
Quote-
“What was there, on to the west? What lay beyond? John Chenneville was in a strange land without a map, chasing down a single man in all this emptiness. He was far from his youth when he had clean linen that had always been laid out on his bed by servants. Other people had started the fires in the fireplaces and brought in wood to keep them going; others made the dinners and set them out; his clothes press was packed tight with clothing from an expensive St. Louis tailor. But the war had taught him a great deal, that things of immense value were actually small and finite: dry socks, a night’s rest without danger, a time plate full of oatmeal with currants in it, a forgotten candle stub in his pocket.”
See why thousands of readers are using Bookclubs to stay connected.