Stretch Your Mind Through An Engrossing Historical Fiction Narrative Infused with Time Travel

Marcil, Kiersten. Witness to the Revolution. Vol. I. 5 vols. The Enlightenment Series. Depoe Bay, OR: Champagne Books, 2022.

Book Review

In an interesting new twist, Kiersten Marcil has spliced traditional American Revolution historical fiction with time travel by the main protagonist to produce a captivating storyline. Her book Witness to the Revolution features a twenty-first-century lawyer who is inexplicably transported into a 1778 skirmish between Redcoats and Rebels in New York’s Hudson Valley. While creatively invoking fantasy and mystery, Marcil, a native New Englander and Mayflower descendent, presents cogent descriptions of military and civilian lives during this uncertain wartime period not found in standard non-fiction accounts.

Throughout the three-hundred-page book, the author describes ordinary life in a military camp and what it was like for civilians to live on the edge of combat. For example, readers learn that soldiers mixed vinegar into their canteens to make untreated water potable and that camp followers received half rations from the army cooks. Additionally, it took a lot of work to tell which side people supported, leading to mistrust among neighbors. While fantasy, the rich detail provides a strong sense that the story could be true if time travel could occur! In addition to mixing accurate historical information, the plot has many unsuspected twists and turns, which keep the reader guessing to the final page (and beyond).

Aiding the vivid dialogue, Marcil intersperses Latin quotes from the Vulgate, a fourth-century translation of the Bible. Additionally, to lend more authenticity, the author employs many eighteenth-century words that have fallen out of use today. For example, readers encounter the term snatch cly, which describes a thief who steals from a woman. Lastly, Marcil describes the heroine as in a “state of undress.” The Revolutionary Era meaning of this phrase is not what you think, and you will have to read her book to find out!

I strongly recommend Witness to the Revolution to those interested in learning more about eighteenth-century culture and what it was like to live in the uncertain, war-torn Revolutionary Era. Furthermore, the time travel thread interests all readers who wish to stretch their imaginations and contemplate alternative realities. I can’t wait for book two in the Enlightenment Series!

For more information on Kiersten Marcil’s work, see her website.