The Whiskey Rebels

Not everybody likes historical novels, but I certainly do, and I certainly liked The Whiskey Rebels by David Liss. The story is set 10 years or so after the end of the Revolutionary War, and was inspired by the events of that War and by those of the Whiskey Rebellion of the mid-1790s. One thing I really liked about the book was that the narrative alternates between the stories of a former spy of George Washington's whose reputation has been ruined, and a smart and resourceful frontier woman who, with her husband and their friends, manage to make the best of dismal circumstances by learning how to make superior whiskey. The first hint of the two stories coming together doesn't happen until almost exactly a quarter of the way through the book, and they steadily become more and more intertwined through the end. In addition to these characters, the author used a good number of real historical figures in the book, such as Hamilton, Washington, Burr, Duer, and other names of which you've heard since grade school (OK, maybe not so much Duer, but this is why we read such books!). I thought this novel was very well-written, every bit as informative as it was entertaining, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.