Good Time Coming

I killed a man the summer I turned thirteen. Thus begins C. S. Harris’s haunting, lyrically rendered tale of coming of age in Civil War–torn Louisiana. Eleven-year-old Amrie St. Pierre is catching tadpoles with her friend Finn O’Reilly when the Federal fleet steams up the Mississippi River in the spring of 1862. With the surrender of New Orleans, Amrie’s village of St. Francisville becomes frighteningly vulnerable between the last river outposts of Vicksburg and Port Hudson. As cannons draw nearer and food, shoes, and medicines grow scarce, Amrie is forced to grow up fast. Her fateful encounter with a tall, golden-haired Union captain named Gabriel threatens to destroy everything and everyone she holds most dear, while women and children form fragile bonds to survive the depravations and dangers of war.