I read WHIRLIGIG, the first book in Richard Buxton’s Shire’s Union trilogy, five and a half years ago. I loved it and wrote a very positive review. As soon as THE COPPER ROAD was available, I eagerly bought it but, for whatever reason, I didn’t read it… Other books got in the way, and I forgot about the American Civil War… How pleased, then, was I when this Coffee Pot Book Club blog tour for Richard’s trilogy prompted me to correct my shortcoming, and I am delighted to say that I hugely enjoyed reading THE COPPER ROAD, certainly as much as Whirligig, if not more.

Richard has recently completed the Shire’s Union trilogy with TIGERS IN BLUE (which I shall buy AND read very soon!).

So, I am delighted to take part in this blog tour to help promote all three books in the trilogy. You can find out more about them below. You can also read an excerpt from THE COPPER ROAD, as well as my review of it. Do take a look! The American Civil War was definitely not my thing, and I knew – and indeed know – very little about it. Yet I found both the first two books of the Shire’s Union trilogy to be splendid reads and I really do recommend them to you. 

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What is the Shire’s Union trilogy about?

Shire leaves his home and his life in Victorian England for the sake of a childhood promise, a promise that pulls him into the bleeding heart of the American Civil War. Lost in the bloody battlefields of the West, he discovers a second home for his loyalty.

Clara believes she has escaped from a predictable future of obligation and privilege, but her new life in the Appalachian Hills of Tennessee is decaying around her. In the mansion of Comrie, long hidden secrets are being slowly exhumed by a war that creeps ever closer.

The Shire’s Union trilogy is at once an outsider’s odyssey through the battle for Tennessee, a touching story of impossible love, and a portrait of America at war with itself. Self-interest and conflict, betrayal and passion, all fuse into a fateful climax.

Written by award winning author Richard Buxton, the Shire’s Union trilogy begins with Whirligig, is continued in The Copper Road, and concludes with Tigers in Blue.

Read an excerpt…
from Book 2, The Copper Road

Comrie – February 1864

It was a poor day for grave digging. The ground was frozen after two clear nights. Shire could feel the topology of the smallest ridge or runnel through his boots. He stamped his feet on the hard ground but failed to generate any warmth, just a fizzy numbness that slowly dissolved to leave them achingly cold.

Clara stood beside him, made all the paler by the low gray sky that had eased over the hills as they’d climbed up here at first light. Why was she doing this? What purpose could it possibly serve? She made no entreaty to warmth other than to work each ungloved hand tightly over the other. She’d been doing that more and more as the week had gone on, inside or out. She wore only a gray shawl over a black dress while she watched the gravediggers at work. He thought to take off his army coat and wrap her, play the chivalrous soldier, but any approach he’d made this morning had been ignored or curtly dealt with. Best to leave her be.

She’d ridden off yesterday, late in the afternoon. No one knew where she was going. She’d refused to wait for Shire to get a horse tacked up to go with her. It was after dark when she’d returned and Mitilde had ragged on her like she was a truant child and steered her to the fire in the den. After she’d made Clara eat, Mitilde had laid into Shire. ‘You so lame that you can’t stop this girl from ridin’ off? What you here for if not to mind her?’

It was useless to tell Mitilde that it had never been that way.

Clara had picked at her food and calmly told them that men would arrive early in the morning. A father and son she’d found in Ocoee who would come up and move the body since everyone here refused to do it. Mitilde had looked horrified and clutched at the doorframe. When she’d steadied herself, she said, ‘I’ll tell Moses to be ready.’ Then she left.

‘We won’t need Moses,’ Clara had called after.

Now, before Shire in the cold morning, the father and son chipped away at the frozen ground, the wiry older man doing most of the work. He talked all the while. ‘Miss, I’d be obliged if you would leave us to it. Or at least let this boy walk you away while we get the leavings out. It ain’t a sight a lady should see, and there’s no casket you say.’

Clara gave no sign of having heard a word.

Shire assumed he was the boy referred to, as Moses – usually an ‘old boy’ – was back in the trees gathering dead branches. There were a few other graves up here on account of this boy, he thought.

The crosspiece had fallen from the crude grave-marker sometime during the winter, so all that identified the grave was a broken chair leg taken from one of the two long huts nearby. Lined up next to it were five unmarked low mounds, waiting on their first spring to gain so much as a blade of grass.

The gravediggers decided to take a different tack. They asked where they could find water to soften the ground. It was a long way back down to the house, too far to make it practicable, but Clara and Shire didn’t know where the water was up here. They all walked over to Moses who’d emerged from the woods and was busy dragging what dry wood he’d found up to the walls of the huts. He pointed the men to a trickle-creek that hatched somewhere in the pass above and they went to find it.

Moses had been ready and waiting first thing in the yard at Comrie. He hadn’t asked if they needed help but just slotted in behind Clara as they started up the long steep path to the grave. It was slow going as the gravediggers had to manhandle the pine casket along the narrow path. Moses had been agitated. He chivvied along close behind Clara and tried to persuade her no good would come of this. Clara had ignored him until he got so worked up he jumped in front and stood in her path. Shire bunched up behind.

Clara took a moment to catch her breath. ‘Go home, Moses, you don’t have to watch this.’

‘Then let me move him, not these folks.’

‘I wouldn’t ask that. You don’t owe him any loyalty.’

‘I ain’t sayin’ I do.’

‘Go then.’

Moses stood his ground. ‘Guess I’ll come witness.’

‘Alright. Maybe it’s time to burn the huts too. You could do that.’

Now Moses sullenly prepared for the fire while the gravediggers poured pail after pail over the grave until the three-inch frost was softened enough for them to take up their shovels again. The minutes played out. Thinking of words that might offer comfort or distraction was beyond Shire. It wasn’t a deep grave. The diggers were surprised to hit metal. By degree they unearthed a thick link of chain and the father decided it was easier to pull on it than to dig it out. Shire turned to Clara. ‘There’s nothing to be gained by watching this.’

She struck away his hand and stepped past him; spoke through clenched teeth while staring toward the grave. ‘Nothing for you perhaps, but I will look on him and see he is rotted and gone.’

Several feet of chain came away easily but then it pulled taut and would only give up a stubborn link at a time. The boy stepped over and gripped the chain like his father and leaned his weight away from the grave. The ground stirred and finally gave way. Both arms, half-rotted but with enough sinew to hold the yellow bones in place, lifted from the ground like a sinner’s first earnest prayer to God.

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And what are my thoughts
on The Copper Road?

The Copper Road is the second book by Richard Buxton that I have read, and I enjoyed it just as much, if not more than, the first, Whirligig. These are the first two books of the Shire’s Union trilogy, set (mostly) in 19th century America, during the years of the Civil War. This is not a period with which I was familiar (or was, in truth, much interested in, ashamed as I am to admit it) and I am not generally very keen on “war” books. But I overcame my hesitation with Whirligig and how very glad I was that I had done so! For the Shire’s Union books are by no means merely “war books”: they are very much more than that. Battles are certainly described, graphically, horrifyingly and movingly. For the main protagonist, Shire, an Englishman, is unwittingly caught up in the war – on the Union side – and then finds he cannot walk away from it. And the reasons for that are, inter alia, friendship, loyalty and honour. It is these human qualities that I think these books are really about. About the relationships between the main protagonists – Shire and Clara (his childhood friend) in Book 1, and also Tod (a Confederate soldier) in Book 2 – and between them and others, and how the war both defines and determines their present lives, and is the catalyst for so many of their decisions, right and wrong, good and bad.

Like Whirligig, The Copper Road is most definitely character- rather than events-driven. And what wonderful characters they are! I loved all three of the main characters, and fretted to know how some of the decisions each of them made – some of which seemed most unwise! – panned out. This was, yet again, what kept me turning the pages. But minor characters are very well-drawn too: Opdycke, Tonkin, Waddell, Matlock, Moses, to name just a few, not all of whom were by any means lovable (you could most certainly loathe Matlock!), but many were likeable or admirable, and all of them were rounded people whose motivations you could begin to understand. 

Other things I’d like to mention…

The history. I am unable to say if the history, or the details of the battles, ARE “authentic”. But, my goodness, they certainly SEEM so! Again, it came across so well that the author really understands this period of history, and brings the characters and their world so very much alive with his wonderful detail. The battle scenes are grim, obviously, but the visceral yet personal writing brought them terrifyingly but also movingly alive. I was also much impressed by the sense of place in the novel. I know the author has paid many visits to these areas of the United States, and his knowledge of them is clear. I really did feel that he had walked where Shire, Clara, Tod and the others walked. I also much enjoyed the references to the area’s natural landscape: the trees, the flowers, the butterflies. This sort of visual detail does so much to help a reader really “see”, indeed sense, the story being told. One other particular detail I must mention: the whittled walking sticks! The author has clearly seen such wondrous things, and I was delighted by the detailed descriptions of their design. 

As with Whirligig, I did feel that The Copper Road had a somewhat slow start, perhaps partly because I was having to get my head around the challenging scenarios of the war. However, once more, I soon enough became so invested in the characters of Shire and Clara, and then Tod, that I was eager to find out what happened to them. (Pages then turned very quickly…)

I again want to mention the language in these books. The writing is eloquent and rich, with some truly apposite and helpful metaphors. But it also felt authentic. I have no knowledge of 19th century American language, but the dialogue in particular sounded very “right” to me.

And my final comment is about the romance at the heart of the story. It – or, rather, they – was handled with great subtlety and sensitivity, especially in respect of one or two of the more difficult outcomes (I won’t say what). Richard Buxton is, as I said in my previous review, a very talented writer. He can handle action and excitement, tenderness and affection (between friends as well as lovers), horror and dreadful fear, joy and exhilaration, the full gamut of human activity and emotion, all with great authorial skill. I really do recommend you read these books!

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Book details

The Shire’s Union trilogy consist of three books, all published by Ocoee Publishing:
Book 1, Whirligig (March 2017)
Book 2, The Copper Road (July 2020)
Book 3, Tigers in Blue (December 2023)

They are all available as eBooks for Kindle and Nook, and in paperback.

Buy links

The Shire’s Union books can be purchased from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and elsewhere.

Universal links

Whirligig | The Copper Road | Tigers in Blue

Whirligig at Barnes and Noble

Trilogy Amazon buy links:

Amazon US | Amazon UK

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About the author

Richard Buxton

Richard lives with his family in the South Downs, Sussex, England. He completed an MA in Creative Writing at Chichester University in 2014. He has an abiding relationship with America, having studied at Syracuse University, New York State, in the late eighties. He travels extensively for research, especially in Tennessee, Georgia and Ohio, and is rarely happier than when setting off from a motel to spend the day wandering a battlefield or imagining the past close beside the churning wheel of a paddle steamer.

Richard’s short stories have won the Exeter Story Prize, the Bedford International Writing Competition and the Nivalis Short Story Award. His first novel, Whirligig (2017) was shortlisted for the Rubery International Book Award. It was followed by The Copper Road (2020) and the Shire’s Union trilogy was completed by Tigers in Blue (2023). To learn more about Richard’s writing visit www.richardbuxton.net.

You can connect with Richard on social media:

Website

Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Book Bub | Amazon Author Page | Goodreads

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