The author did a nice job describing the brutality of the civil war in every aspect from the war itself to the fight over slaves. There were great topics explored and truths dealt with. The only thing I disliked in the book was how extremely hot and cold the initial relationship between Joshua Ivy and Cadence was. The first 2/3 of the book they both would make these tremendous negative judgements towards each other with no thought to asking or talking about whether they were correct. They would just up and leave assuming the worst of the other. Then in the next section they’d be right back enthralled with each other for the next 2 seconds till they went off again. It felt a little like whiplash mentally at times and made me so frustrated with them, feeling like the interaction was a little ridiculous.