Wasn't keen on this. I wondered who it was for. The notes say 'adults' but it feel like a middle grade book., It's very simplistic and so surface-level. No real sense of time and place. There's a lot of history notes in it but no real feeling of being there. I read this book straight after I read Blood & Sugar, by Laura Shepherd-Robinson - and Quinn might want to take a look at that for how to bring a real feeling of time to her work.

I really liked how story starts and how it flows through to the end. I also liked certain characters and obviously the main character is full of wit. But and I am sorry to say it’s a big one. I did not get the sense it was set during the civil war. It was all too glossed over and just too clean and tidy. Yes there were villains but they didn’t scare me. It felt a bit flat to me. Also what or who is Francis Quinn?? And also there are points in the story where the smallest man is mentioned then the next sentence does not line up or even make sense. I am not sure if this is because of an issue with kindles formatting or an editing error. Overall the plot is good and the characterisation is good just there’s a lack of place and time.