This book was okay. It took a little while for me to get into it. I wouldn't recommend it to a friend to read. The middle section of the book was engaging but it dragged on at the end for a bit.

If I believed in ghosts, I think I could easily imagine them haunting a battlefield, a place of blood and sweat and fear, a place mired in pain and loss. Ghosts, mostly figurative, but maybe even a few literal ones, are palpable presences in Sisters of Shiloh by Kathy and Becky Hepinstall, a novel of historical fiction set during the American Civil War. This is a story with an unusual twist, however. It's about soldiers going into battle, but the two soldiers in this story are women dressed as men.

Civil War ghosts are not unheard of, and neither, too, were women who dressed as men in order to fight. And not just a smattering of women either. More than four hundred women have been documented (and the actual number could be higher) as passing as male soldiers in order to take to the battlefield. Undoubtedly it was easier in that era and earlier times to get away with such a deception when any able-bodied man was called to fight and passing a physical test was anything but rigorous. If you could hold a gun, you could probably go to war.

When Libby Beale decides to have revenge on the soldiers of the North after her husband is killed in the Battle of Antietem, her elder sister Josephine knows she has to go with her to keep her safe. One dead soldier for each year of Arden's life. Twenty-one. Though which sister is looking after the other is questionable. Libby and Josephine have always been close as children. Libby, the pretty one, and Josephine the plain, the one living in the other's shadow. Libby more ethereal and in some ways fragile, Josephine the practical who helps with her father's dentistry practice.

And then Arden comes. Newly arrived from Shiloh with his family, he and Libby become almost inseparable. All that Arden is and loves and hates, so too does Libby, it seems. "Josephine was gently elbowed out". Libby sees in Arden a wildness and a sweetness but Josephine sees only arrogance and entitlement. Is it telling that when Libby falls ill, near-death-ill that Arden stays away while Josephine nurses her back to health. On the brink of death Libby seems to not respond to anyone but her elder sister. But the inevitable happens when she recovers and the two marry. And then war breaks out, and Arden willingly goes to fight.

In her sickest moments Libby was delusional. She inhabited a world somewhere between here and there, the there being somewhere beyond the grave, and you wonder if even when she was recovered if there was still some part of her left on that other side. She's one tragedy away from losing her sanity and falling back into that other place. And it arrives with Arden's death. When Libby hears about the impending battle, and the nearness to where they live in Virginia, she sets out in search of him with Josephine trailing in her wake. Antietam was one of the bloodiest battles and Libby is driven to find her husband. The two see horrors beyond their wildest imaginations, and against all odds, Josephine finds Arden. He's mortally wounded and dies before Libby can get to him.

There is a passion about Libby. A passionate love for her husband when he was alive and a passion for revenge when he is dead. Josephine is mild mannered and hopes only for someone to love and to love her back. But Libby has a hatred that burns in her soul for the Yankees.

"Josephine wished she could hate the enemy with the fervor of her sister, but although she resented, of course, their repeated occupations of Winchester, she had to claim a guilty love for the music of their regimental band and for the festive colors of the Zouave regiment, who has stolen their May cherries. She couldn't help but think of those young men with their strange accents and wonder if perhaps among them might be a man who would notice her."

Libby sees nothing good about the Northern soldiers. She cuts her hair and dons Arden's clothes and is about to set off to volunteer when Josephine threatens to reveal her plan to their parents. But with the chance of Libby turning her back forever on Josephine she knows the only thing she can do is come with her. Josephine may be the stronger one in many ways, but Libby is driven by her passion. Libby and Josephine become Thomas and Joseph. Like someone on a perpetual adrenaline rush Libby can hold her own with most of the men and even outdo a few of them. Josephine knows she cannot kill anyone and mourns the loss of what femininity she felt she had. They are taken for underage boys trying to enlist, and so needed are bodies to fill Confederate uniforms the pair are not questioned.

I leave the best part of the story for you to discover on your own--their experiences as soldiers in and out of battle. The inevitable happens (which could mean almost anything when it comes to a war story), but maybe not in exactly the ways you expect. This is indeed a love story, but that's not all, and there are many kinds of love. This is also a story of loss and grief and madness, and in such a bloody war who wouldn't go a little mad. Josephine's health and strength do little to keep her safe, yet it's Libby who succeeds on the battlefield. She takes on Arden's persona, and it is almost as though he takes over and is directing her. Sometimes ghosts do exist, if only in our hearts and minds.

The Hepinstall sisters have written a slender novel, small in stature and light in hand (actually the book fits nicely in the readers hand) but with not a wasted page. It's a convincing story, not sentimental but in every way satisfying. To be honest I'm not normally keen on Civil War stories. I want to read them and I want to like them, but the period holds less interest to me than other times and places, and certainly other wars. However I do have an interest in women passing as men in order to live lives of adventure or find more opportunities than those normally available to women. I find the idea fascinating, so when Houghton Mifflin offered to send me a copy to read I couldn't pass up the opportunity, so thanks to them as I might not otherwise have picked Sisters of Shiloh up. Beautifully written and entirely 'gulpable'.

Be sure to check out Becky Hepinstall's article on Ancestry.com where she talks about her research and shares some very interesting stories of real women who donned male clothing to go and fight. It's a fascinating follow up to the novel!