- Hardcover: 372 pages
- Publisher: Knox Robinson Publishing (May 8, 2013)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1908483555
- ISBN-13: 978-1908483553
- I received an ebook for review and was not monetarily compensated for my review.
Book one of Southern Son: The Saga of Doc Holliday.
The name Doc Holliday conjures images of the Wild West and the shootout at the OK Corral, but before he was a Western legend he was a Southern son, born in the last days of the Old South with family links to the author of Gone With the Wind. Now this amazing story is told for the first time in a trilogy of novels entitled Southern Son: The Saga of Doc Holliday.
The story begins with Inheritance, set during the turbulent times of the American Civil War, as young John Henry Holliday welcomes home his heroic father and learns a terrible secret about his beloved mother. His only confidant is his cousin Mattie, his childhood sweetheart who shares his memories of plantation life and better days before the War. But Mattie isn't around to comfort him when tragedy strikes and John Henry's young hero-worship turns to bitter anger. As the Confederacy falls, John Henry becomes a troubled teenager and joins in with a gang of vigilantes trying to chase the Reconstruction Yankees out of their small Georgia town. But when a murderous plot brings threats of military prison, he vows to change his reckless ways and leaves Georgia to attend dental school in Philadelphia, hoping to come home as a respected professional man worthy of asking for his cousin Mattie's hand. However, when he returns from two years in the North to begin dental practice in Atlanta he finds his courtship beset with challenges. There are family intrigues, lies and revelations, rivals for Mattie's affections and a violent encounter that changes everything. "Inheritance" is the first novel in an epic tale of heroes and villains, dreams lost and found, families broken and reconciled, of sin and recompense and the redeeming power of love.
About the author
Victoria Wilcox has been a teacher of English and composition and is a nationally known writer and lecturer on the life of Doc Holliday. She is a member of the Western Writers of America and founding director of Georgias Holliday-Dorsey-Fife House Museum.
My Thoughts:
Most everyone has heard of Doc Holliday and the OK Corral...but what most people don't know ( I didn't) is about his young life. This first book, based on fact, in the series tells the reader about John Henry Holliday from the time he was a young boy to when he leaves for Texas as a young man. We learn about his love for his cousin Mattie. He wants to marry her but she declines and tells him that since they are first cousins and she being Catholic said it was against her religion. John Henry's relationship with his father, especially after his mother dies, is tenuous at best. Nothing that John Henry could do would make his father happy but that didn't stop him from trying. The book tells of the large family that he spends a lot of time with, I think that despite his father, John Henry had a good childhood surrounded by his aunts, uncles and cousins. He does get himself into trouble on occasion though. At the age of 19 he heads off to study dentistry in Philadelphia and graduates just shy of his 21st birthday. He is considered not old enough to open his own practice until he is 21. The first book ends just before John Henry is moving out west.
I really enjoyed this story which for me is a plus because I am not a wild west lover...The book was full of interesting facts of the Civil War and life in general in the late 1800's and of a legend in America's history. It will be interesting to read the subsequent books in the series. If you are a fan of the wild west, the OK Corral and the other colorful characters in the turbulent times after the Civil War,then this book is for you!!
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