Mary Johnston was the cousin of Confederate General Joseph Johnston. She used her knowledge of his actions along with the diaries of men and women who witnessed the events of the early Civil War to write her books. Her works combine fact with fiction to create historical novels. Prisoners of Hope is a story of colonial Virginia when the colony was seething with disaffection caused by the sending of rebels to the plantations. An excerpt from the beginning reads, "The object of her attention was a large sloop that had left the bay and was sailing up a wide inlet or creek that pierced the...