I’m always a little leary of historical fiction novels written by Fox News Network celebrities. Most of them are published in an uncannily fast time, such as novels written by Bill O’Reilly (ex?), usually co-written with Martin Dugard, published at least once a year. He is what I call a commercial writer. How much research can be done at that pace? But, lo and behold, Brian Kilmeade, Fox News Network TV star (Fox and Friends) and radio star (The Brian Kilmeade Show) seems to have written a book all by his lonesome. So you can imagine that I was apprehensive reading another Fox Network star. Guess what? Although not a fact-filled almanac, I was pleasantly surprised at the author’s historical accuracy. This is not my first rodeo reading about the Alamo and its afterlife. It was a smooth and seemingly factual rendition of one of America’s favorite stories. One thing though...I thought the author spent too much time on The Alamo and too little time on the Avenger part.
The birth of Texas was started by Stephen F. Austin’s father in 1821. “The fifty-nine-year-old Moses Austin obtained permission from the Mexican governor of Texas, who was eager to populate the sparsely occupied state, for three hundred American settlers to establish a colony there. Just weeks after settling the deal, he died of pneumonia.” On his deathbed, he pleaded for his son, Stephen, to take up his cause. He came. As the years went by, Austin went to see President /General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna about making Texas a separate state. Santa Anna would have nothing to do with that and had him arrested. “He felt lucky when, in late July 1835, he was finally permitted to head home to Texas. After his many months in Mexico City, he fully grasped the size of the enemy; he and his thirty thousand Texian (spelling at the time) settlers faced a fight with a nation of some eight million.”
The fight to take Texas from Mexico (go west, young man's first step? haha) would be a mammoth struggle, to say the least. And Santa Anna was a Napoleon look-alike to the nth degree. Here is a man who ordered one of his own Mexican states (Zacatecas) to give up their weapons and when they refused to give them up...he destroyed them. “The president permitted his soldiers to run wild, setting fires and pillaging. In fact, more than two thousand civilians in the town had been slaughtered, among them hundreds of women and children. Santa Anna’s message was clear: He would be merciless in putting down any who opposed him.” This is the man the brave Texians would have to wrest Texas from. Read the rest of this historical novel to find out how they did it! In it, you will meet President Andrew Jackson, Sam Houston, Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett (see my review of (7/18/2013).
RATING: 5 out of 5 stars
Comment: Winning the war:
“Sam Houston, through some mix of luck, instinct, fortuitous timing, and good counsel-and bravery-of men around him, did something remarkable. He and his army of farmers and shopkeepers, men distracted by the plight of their families and friends, who had become homeless wanderers fleeing for their lives, faced off with a large professional army, one amply supplied with guns, artillery, and munitions. And won a stunning, one-sided victory.”
