11 h 30 minAudiobook15 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the stranger you trust carries a secret that could cost you your life?
In The Reckoning, Robert W. Chambers brings the American Revolution into the woods and settlements of New York. Neighbors, friends and families stand on opposite sides of a war fought close to home. Messages must be carried, strangers must be judged, and a wrong guess about someone can cost a life. Here, trust is never a small matter.
This historical romance brings a love story into a world of spies and risky errands. Personal feeling collides with public duty, while woods, rivers and lonely farms shape where people can go and who can find them. The frontier is more than a backdrop: it makes each secret harder to keep and each choice more dangerous.
What you’ll discover
- A war close to home Enter a divided New York where the conflict reaches into friendships, families and neighboring homes.
- Secrets worth a life Follow risky errands where carrying a message means deciding whom to trust.
- Love against duty Discover a romance shaped by the pull between private feeling and public obligation.
- A frontier that matters Explore woods, rivers and lonely farms that shape both danger and escape.
- Loyalties under strain Feel the uncertainty of a war where battle lines divide people who know one another.
Who will love it
Readers who love Revolutionary War adventure, spy tales, frontier settings and romances with quick banter will find plenty here, as will anyone curious about the Iroquois League and the New York borderland.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A spy hides inside a loyalist household
- Dinner talk exposes a plan against the frontier
- A cockfight brings the enemy to town
- Two drovers, a grave, and a quarrel
- A ball, a duel, and a ride for freedom
- Safe at the Blue Fox, love begins
- North to Albany, Johnstown and the Great Tree
- What the story is really about
- How the story is told
Who’s who
- Carus RenaultA young New Yorker, adopted into the Oneida Wolf Clan, who spies for Washington in British New York and longs to fight openly.
- Elsin GreyA quick-witted Canadian visitor of seventeen or eighteen who teases, flirts and holds a secret that shapes everyone's fate.
- Walter ButlerA graceful, melancholy Ranger captain with a fine singing voice, who plots to lay the northern frontier in ashes.
- Sir Peter ColevilleCarus's cheerful, spendthrift kinsman and host, a sportsman who loves cockfights and who dislikes the butchery of frontier war.
- Colonel Marinus WillettThe lean, whimsical commander on the Tryon County frontier, who trusts Carus with the most dangerous mission of all.
- Jack MountA huge, laughing rifleman of Morgan's corps who calls himself a highwayman and serves as Carus's loyal friend.
- Little OtterAn Oneida scout and chief who greets Carus as a brother and guides him through the forest signs of the Long House.
- The WeaselA small, wrinkled and perfectly mannered woodsman who runs beside Mount and watches Carus's back.
Formats and delivery
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 11 h 30 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 15 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Read and hear Die Abrechnung in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Die Abrechnung
by Robert W. Chambers · 1905
A spy in British New York must find a lost town called Thendara while a charming Ranger captain circles him.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
The Reckoning is a Revolutionary War romance and spy story by Robert W. Chambers, who dedicated it to his friend J.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A spy hides inside a loyalist household
The story opens with a short prologue in which Carus recalls New York under British rule. He says the city stood chained for seven years yet stayed fearless, and that two great fires destroyed a quarter of the town. He remembers the prison ships, where thousands of Americans died, and he names the Jersey as the worst of them. He promises to tell only what happened to him and his friends.
Chapter one shows him at work in Sir Peter's house on Wall Street in July 1781. For four years he has sent secret reports to Colonel Marinus Willett through John Ennis, a tobacconist at the Sign of the Silver Box. He came to the city at nineteen, a country boy raised among the Oneidas near Broadalbin Bush. He still fears that the respectable people on Broadway may one day crowd the common to watch him hang.
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What is The Reckoning by Robert W. Chambers about?
It follows Carus Renault, a young spy for Washington in British-held New York in 1781, as he hunts for a lost town called Thendara, crosses into rebel lines, and then faces the Ranger captain Walter Butler on the frontier.
What does Thendara mean in the book?
Thendara is a name from the Iroquois Rite of Condolence. It stands for a lost town that exists only in ceremony, and the council fire there is where the Long House plans its policy.
Is The Reckoning a true story?
It is a novel set among real events of 1781, such as the siege of New York, the march to Yorktown and the raid on Johnstown. Many people in it, like Willett and Hamilton, were real, while the main lovers are invented.
The author
Robert W. Chambers
1865–1933 · American novelist and illustrator
Robert W. Chambers was an American writer whose 1895 collection The King in Yellow became a cornerstone of weird fiction, casting its influence over H.P. Lovecraft and generations of horror writers since. He was a successful popular novelist in his day, but this early work is what endures.
More by Robert W. Chambers
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