I felt very torn about this book. I had really been looking forward to reading it, but it wasn't quite what I was expecting and I can't say it lived up to expectations. I read a lot of reviews about this book and Shades of Gray (SOG being the original version that was published - Noble Cause was published for the 150 year anniversary of the war as a shorter book with a HEA ending) and expected something that was a little heavier on the historical than the romance, but I often felt that the plot unfolded more as a romance, just without the sex scenes.
It felt that certain passages were missing - that the author jumped from one part to another and that important plot developments had been excluded or glossed past (whether or not this had to do with the shortening of SOG to NC, I'm not sure), but I found myself having to double back a few times to make sure I hadn't somehow skipped an entire chapter or something.
Certain aspects of the relationship between Andrea and Hunter also didn't feel right to me. I would agree with one other reviewer here that the arguing got a little tedious at times. I also didn't feel that it always followed a natural progression. I.e. when Andrea bought Zeus for Hunter despite the fact that she was supposed to be hurt and angry with him after his behavior after they slept together. I also thought a lot of their miscommunications during this part could have easily been overcome if Hunter, instead of continuing to say "listen to me" "let me explain" "please wait" - he had just explained - there were too many opportunities for resolutions that just didn't happen - it just didn't make sense. It also didn't feel in keeping with Andrea's character when she basically turned her back on the Union and fought for the South when she spent the entire first 300 pages aggressively and vociferously espousing the principles/beliefs of the North.
However, despite all of this, in the middle I got so absorbed in the book that hours flew by at one point without my being aware of it. And I do appreciate the ability to get so drawn into a book that everything falls away for a while, and therefore, I'm giving the book a 3, rather and a 2.
