Review: I Shall Be Near To You

I Shall Be Near To You

By Erin Lindsay McCabe

Crown January 2014

304 pages

From the library

Rosetta and Jeremiah adore each other. They have great dreams of living a long happy life on a farm that they tend together. Jeremiah thinks that the only way to buy their farm is to enlist. The Civil War isn't supposed to last for very long, anyway. But Rosetta finds life without him unbearable. She is away from her family and her new in-laws don't like her at all. The only way to be with her beloved is to disguise herself as a boy and enlist alongside him. 

This book is a hidden gem and I can't figure out why it's not getting more attention. I'm not sure where I first heard of it, but I am so glad I read it. Rosetta and Jeremiah will steal your heart from the first few pages. Their love is very deep, but so realistic. They bicker all the time, but only because they truly care for each other. They are perhaps the only people in their lives who truly understand the other. After reading partway through the book, I actually set it aside for a few days. Jeremiah and Rosetta were about to march into battle and I cared for the characters so much that I didn't want to read if anything happened to either one of them. 

As in any good historical novel, the research is important. Ms. McCabe perfectly brings the time period to life, but without stopping the story to teach a history lesson. She drew from the letters and accounts of the 200 women that we know of who enlisted during the Civil War. I also appreciated that this author didn't fall into the trap of a lot of historical writers. Rosetta is headstrong and stubborn, but she is also a woman of the 1800s, not a modern woman set into another time. Rosetta understands her limits as a woman in her time and place, but she also is willing to fight anyone and anything to be with her husband.

The Civil War is a time period that is not covered too frequently in historical fiction. But this is a book you don't want to miss. You will be immersed in both the everyday life of a small town and the noise and violence of the battlefield. Best of all, this is a really perfect love story - a love that is committed even in the hardest of times, a love that is strengthened by time spent together and hardships overcome, and a love that is put to the test both by the horrors of war and by the strong personalities of Rosetta and Jeremiah.