Sadly, neither author was a strong contributor to the two series. Kit Pearson, author of Whispers of War, didn't write anything else, while Gillian Chan wrote one Dear Canada as well as A Call to Battle.
I enjoyed both of these stories, because neither one is truly focused on the war.
Whispers of War is more about daily life and the tension leading up to the war. Will there be war? Will Americans who moved to Canada have to fight their former countrymen? The lines were far more blurred back then and even those who left America as Loyalists didn't fully identify as Canadians. Susanna and her family are interesting characters, although I kept waiting for an apology from Caroline that never came. I have trouble getting behind a character that's presented as acting so poorly her entire family disagreed with her actions just getting away with it with no mention of it afterwards. "My sister struggled with childbirth" doesn't erase "my sister was a judgmental douche that tried to teach her parents how to parent which is totally not cool." Caroline seems a little more chill after the baby's born, but there's no real resolution to that. I was also a little annoyed that Susanna ended up with the boy she didn't care for at the beginning. I mean, you could see it coming, but I wanted someone else for her. I loved the bits about the Falls and Fort George and Fort Niagara. My neck of the woods and I've been to all of them.
A Call to Battle is really good. I won't be surprised if at the end of these reviews this is one of my favorites from I Am Canada. Sandy is a very realistic character and his story is most entertaining. I didn't want to put the book down. The majority of it wasn't the war. He was only in one battle for the last chapter or so and that's it. But the book covers a lot of different ground, which I liked a lot. The only thing I didn't like was the time jump at the end. I would have liked to see the developing relationship between Angus and Mathilda instead of they just suddenly have kids years later. I would have liked some more development for Polly, too. The book does a really good job of being in Sandy's head, but the family characters aren't as developed as they could have been.
Anyway, still both are good and I'm glad to be doing this reread, because I've forgotten these books so much. I didn't remember Sandy's story at all! Or Susanna's either really.
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