Interactive Historical Fiction e-books
Be Ever Hopeful, Hannalee by Patricia Beatty
The cannons have finally stopped booming, and the Civil War is over. Hannalee Reed is home from the North, where she and her little brother, Jem, had been taken by Union soldiers to work in a Yankee mill. But the plucky quick-witted heroine of Patricia Beatty’s best-selling novel of the Civil War South, Turn Homeward, Hannalee, must leave again. This time it is for Atlanta, where her older brother, Davey is determined to make a new life for his family.
However reluctant she is, Hannalee faces this new upheaval and the hardships it brings with the same indomitable spirit and ever-hopeful optimism that saw her through her darkest hours up North. She finds work in a dry-goods store to help support her family She thwarts the efforts of a persistent Yankee officer who is searching for her. And when Davey is arrested for a crime he did not commit, Hannalee unhesitatingly puts herself in danger to prove his innocence.
Patricia Beatty weaves drama and suspense into her evocative, historically accurate picture of postwar Atlanta. Be Ever Hopeful, Hannalee is alive with the same type of emotional power, sweeping background, and unforgettable people as its companion volume.
“In her sequel to Turn Homeward, Hannalee, Beatty describes the life of her plucky heroine and her family in postwar Atlanta, once again giving her readers a vivid picture of a little-known aspect of the Civil War and its aftermath. When Hannalee’s brother, Davey, returns one-armed and embittered from his service in the Confederacy, he decides that the family must leave the Roswell home for Atlanta’s booming economy. They arrive to find high prices and no place to live—except a refugee camp. Everyone must work, mostly for the hated Yankees, and this—added to the fact that Davey’s disability forces him to train for something other than his carpentry trade—further embitters Davey. His anger, his loneliness for the girl he thinks he has lost, and his involvement with a group of ex-Confederates lead to a near-tragic climax—during which Hannalee’s courage and that of two new friends (one a Yankee and the other a freed black girl) come to the rescue…Beatty’s use of period detail and her well-turned plot give the book texture and excitement. For fans of the brave Hannalee, this will be a welcome follow-up”
