Only two authors of historical novels have written a series of novels that together encompass the history of the mountain region of their Appalachian state. John Ehle is the one who portrays Western North Carolina. Mary Lee Settle's Beulah Quintet depicts West Virginia history. This novel is set in the Civil War era. "There have been many books about the Civil War; none of them, with the exception of The Red Badge of Courage, have comes close to the dusty, bloody, grinding truth that John Ehle writes about. Time of Drums is not only the story of men launched into a war with uncertain loyalties, but more important, it continues the Wright saga that John Ehle began with The Land Breakers and promises to expand into one of the great fictional sagas of American history." - Borden Deal.
New York: Harper & Row, 1970. 328 pages. Hardback in dust jacket.