The Second Mrs. Hockaday by Susan Rivers

Placidia,"Dia", Fincher decides to accept Major Gryffth Hockaday who is fighting for the Rebels in the Civil War in 1863 offer of marriage after knowing him less than a day.  She feels a certain spark of something special when she's around him.  His wife has just died and he has a young child, Charles, that needs someone to take care of it, though he has a slave woman looking after it now on his small farm.  Dia's stepsister Agnes has just had a huge wedding to Floyd Parris a wealthy landowner, though she herself has land of her own.  Agnes is a bitter woman who is jealous of Dia's beauty but the seventeen-year-old Dia hasn't figured this out. She can be naive about some things.  Which makes the task she is left to do all the more incredible. Hockaday takes her to their home and stays for a couple of days and then is called back to the War early and so leaves her to handle the household--something she has not been trained to do.

As a wedding present, she has brought along the slave Abner to help with the household.  She quickly gets rid of the slave Sukie who is there to take care of the child because she is cruel to the child. Floyd takes her and sends her one of his slaves, Cleo in return.  Floyd has been helping her out as much as he can.  They need help in the fields to bring in the crop and going against Bob, who runs the fields, wishes she goes to the mailman in town and asks him, an evil man, to find her two men to buy. He sends her one who fights all the time and one who gets sick and dies.  He's also reading the Hockaday's letters to each other and not sending all of them along.  She also has to deal with the military and vagabonds coming to take her food, animals, and money and possibly her virtue.

The book opens up with Dia in a jail cell in 1865 being held for trial for killing the child she had while the Major was away fighting and being a prisoner of war. The child he did not father and the child for whom the father she will not name.  It is whispered that Floyd is the father.  This novel is told through letters from Dia to her cousin Millie and back and from Dia to the Major and back and Dia's sons to each other and their cousin in 1892 and court documents as well as Dia's diary.  This is a unique way to tell a story and it may take some getting used to, but honestly, I can't imagine this book told in another way.  During the Civil War journals and letters were the lifeblood of soldiers and their families.  So it makes sense to use these devices to tell a story that takes place during the Civil War.  You might figure most of it out ahead of time but this book still holds some surprises.  I really enjoyed this book. Dia is a powerful character with grit and determination to make it no matter what, though she goes through a dark period that she does not see a way out of she finds the strength to overcome and come out the other side.  I'm not quite sure what to make of her flighty son Achilles but her son Charles I do like. He is sensible and kind and smart.  The Major is a bit of a rough character, but in his letters home to her he shows his soft side and how much he cares for her and that he didn't marry her just for her looks or to find a mother for his child.  This is a great book and I definitely recommend it.

Quotes

He said he would not leave me for the world, and I believe him. I said I loved him as I ever did, and I hope he believed me. The truth is harder, as the truth often is.  We are no longer blessed with innocence, nor do we deserve to be. Paradise may have been lost, but paradise is a bad bargain. It costs too much. It conceals serpents and is littered with graves. I would rather have this: my husband wrapped around me, his breath against my face. The cord, or something like it, sustaining me.

-Susan Rivers (The Second Mrs. Hockaday p 254)

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Second-Mrs-Hockaday-Novel-ebook/dp/B01B3VMC1E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1531743210&sr=8-1&keywords=the+second+mrs.+hockaday