Independence: Drums of War, Volume 1

By: Peter Reese Doyle
Publisher: Powder Springs Press
ISBN: 978-1-938437-00-7
Copyright, 2012
Reviewed by: Mary Lignor
Review date: April 10, 2013

This fascinating series (Drums of War) is a great find of historical novels for young people. These books contain wonderful stories about the beginning of the Revolutionary War and are written for the reader in a fiction based non-fiction account. In book number one, Independence, on April 21, 1775, in Williamsburg, VA, the British Army is on the way to steal all the colonial gunpowder stored in the local powder magazine. This will be the beginning of the War talk among the British and the Colonists.

In these books we meet two families that live next to each other. The patriarchs of the families are in the shipping business together. The Hendricks family and the Edwards family struggle to keep their business alive as they try to get past British ships in the harbors and British spies on land. The young men of the two families, Andrew Hendricks and Nathan Edwards are asked by their fathers to go on horseback and deliver messages to the Sons of Liberty. Nearer to the home front, the two young ladies of the families, Rachel Hendricks and Sarah Edwards, are also very adventurous and have a hand in saving Patrick Henry from being captured as he is about to lead the patriots against the British Governor.