About This Book
The Women Spies Books can be read in any order!Some might call them heroes. Others consider them traitors. As the Civil War threatens to tear the nation apart, four women—a slave, a seductress, a soldier, and a spy—are willing to risk everything they have, except their convictions. Hattie Lewis is one of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency's first female employees, but she is tired of playing a minor role in a man's world. When her boss asks her to accompany his top operative on a mission behind enemy lines, she readily accepts. But the mission threatens to have dire consequences for them both. Although Mary Jane was born a slave, her mistress, Elizabeth (Miss Lizzie) Van Lew, always had other plans for her, including loaning her services to Jefferson Davis's household. Mary Jane soon becomes privy to the innermost operations of the Confederate government, which she then passes on to Miss Lizzie via her contacts in the Richmond Underground. When a secret from Mary Jane's past is revealed, she wonders if she will ever be able to free herself from Miss Lizzie's grasp. Despite her name, Belle Boyd is no typical Southern woman. As she watches her father and cousins rush to join the Confederacy, she longs to do her own part. After realizing she isn't cut out for nursing, Belle resorts to using her coquettish charms to ferret information from occupying Yankees. But, after she is thrown into jail and threatened with the noose, will she finally realize her actions have consequences? When Loreta Velasquez's husband is killed in a training drill, she decides to avenge his death by joining the Confederate Army. Disguised as a soldier named Harry T. Buford, Loreta participates in the battles of Bull Run, Shiloh, and Ball's Bluff. But when the hardships she experiences do not quench her thirst for glory, Loreta conceives a plan for the South's last chance to win the war. Told from the viewpoints of these real-life women—both Confederate and Union—Underground: Traitors and Spies in Lincoln's War is an absorbing tale of love, loyalty, and liberation.
