Never received it from early reviewers, so I checked it out from the library. The characters were one-dimensional and the plot was hard to get into for me. Harder core historical fiction fans will enjoy, however, reading this book. ( )

I am a fan of historical fiction and non-fictional memoirs from this era and I have read a number of them, specifically focusing on the Confederacy and the plight of the slaves (including a fictional memoir from the perspective of a female slave owner, "Property", by Valerie Martin.) However, I have never read anything, fictional or non-fictional, addressing the life and times of the infamous John Wilkes Booth and his family. So when I found a free Kindle book on amazon.com for a fictional memoir told from the perspective of Asia Boothe, the assassin's sister, I was excited.

The idea is a good one and the story was readable, I just found myself skimming through some parts as the writing style just didn't really grab me. The Shakespearean quotes, while certainly accentuating the Booth's as a theatrical family, didn't really work for me either. But the idea was still interesting and a worthwhile endeavor on the part of this author. ( )

This is a look at John Wilkes Booth through the eyes of his sister Asia. I began reading this during a particularly boring and misinformed lecture at a conference I attended in October. To be honest, the book wasn't much better than the lecture, but it gave me something to do without having to listen to a speaker who didn't know the difference in a blog and Facebook. I finally got back to it. I certainly had never considered how Booth's life had affected his family members, and this did give insight into it. The book seemed to be very full of dialogue. Much of the book is at a very low reading level -- maybe as low as 3rd grade. I really believe the book is better suited as a book for about 5th or 6th graders than adults to which it is marketed, although there are a couple of scenes that would be questionable content-wise for that audience. I read the Kindle edition of this book. ( )

Not much story here....lots of quotes.... Unfortunately, this is the type of book one gets for free from Amazon.com. The selection used to be much better. You could really get some good ones for not much. This one was disappointing..... I couldn't really empathize with any of the characters. ( )

Disclaimer: I got this e-book for free in exchange for a review.

The book tells the story of Asia Booth Clarke who is placed under house arrest the night her brother shot President Lincoln. The book is divided into two parts, part one is when Asia reflects on her childhood and the second takes place in adulthood after the murder of President Lincoln.

The first part (young Asia) was difficult to read and confusing, but the second part (adult Asia) was interesting with its perspective and easier to get through. The writing style is old fashioned and heavy handed, I believe the author used Asia’s diary and /or memoires as a guideline but the style didn’t work for me; to boot there are a lot of Shakespeare quotations peppered around the book, understandable since the Booths were a family of famous Shakespearean actors, but instead of adding to the story I felt it just made it more difficult to read (too much of a good thing?).
I don’t know what to think of this book.
I never really got into the novel even though it was an interesting read about an event we all know about, but from a fresh (to me) perspective. I was really looking forward to reading this book, maybe that’s why I was not too thrilled with it. ( )