Tag Archives: historical fiction

Circle of Spies

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Circle of Spies is the third of Roseanna M. White’s Culper Spy Ring, a real life spy ring active during the Revolutionary War (Ring of Secrets was the first and Whispers from the Shadows was second). Although we don’t know that the ring continued, Roseanna said in the last book that someone in the CIA said it was possible. So Roseanna imagined how the spy ring could have worked during the War of 1812 in the second book, and now in the Civil War.

Marietta Hughes is an unlikely heroine at first. She has lived mostly for her own will and pleasure, not walking with the God of her parents. She married Lucien Hughes, wealthy president of a railroad company. But Lucien had been killed. Marietta had an understanding with his brother, Devereaux, that they would marry as soon as was proper after her period of mourning.

But then Marietta’s grandfather, Thaddeus Lane, informs her that the Hughes family is not staunchly Unionist, as they proclaim. Not only are they Confederate, but Devereaux is the head of a secret fifth column bent on killing Lincoln and seizing power.

As if that wasn’t enough to turn Marietta’s world upside down, Lane tells her that their family has been involved as a ring of spies since the Revolutionary War. Then he tells her that a Pinkerton man, Slade Osborne, is on his way to infiltrate the secret society to try to find proof that will lead to their arrests. Marietta’s job is to distract Devereaux as much as possible to facilitate Osborne’s investigation.

Thus begins a game of cat-and-mouse. Osborne is not altogether certain he can trust Marietta at first. Marietta is revolted at what she has learned about the Hughes family, but must keep pretending she is in love with Devereaux.

I ached with Marietta as she came to face what she had become and wondered if God could forgive her. Sometimes the realization of the magnitude of one’s sin breaks open to them more fully after they believe. Osborne, too, has a broken background, as well as complications from a twin brother whose values were the opposite of his.

By the end of this book, I wanted to put everything else aside to keep reading what happened. There were some quite exciting twists and turns!

I did disagree with one point, though, when a character says that God doesn’t speak for or against slavery. He does: I wrote once about the Bible and Slavery. But I did like what the character had to say about trying to reconcile the views of different Christians on the issue: “At last we realized we didn’t have to, because God so very rarely tells us what society should do—rather, He tells us how we, as believers, should behave in whatever society to which we belong” (p. 226).

In-between this book and the previous one was a little novella titled A Hero’s Promise. Julienne Lane has been helping a friend, Freeda, hide runaway slaves and get them to safety. Julienne is unsure whether to let her fiance, Jack Arnaud, in on the situation.

Meanwhile, Jack has postponed their wedding twice already but might have to do so again. A mentally unbalanced man is being set up by enemies to assassinate President Jackson, and the Culpers must intervene.

The assassination attempt was based on a true event.

I enjoyed these forays in early American history and spycraft. But even more, I enjoyed the journeys of faith Roseanna takes her characters through.

Whispers from the Shadows

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Whispers from the Shadows is the second novel in Roseanna M. White’s Culper Spy Ring series.

The story opens some 35 years after the Revolutionary War. England and the United States are once again battling each other, this time in the War of 1812.

So Gwyneth Fairchild can’t understand why her father is sending her away from England to America, to his old friends, the Lanes. How can crossing a sea filled with pirates and combatants be safer than England?

But her father is insistent. As they’ve said their good-byes, Gwyneth turns to the carriage and her guardians. But she runs back to ask her father one last thing—only to witness his murder. His last whisper as he sees her is, “Run.”

So Gwyneth runs. On the two-month long voyage, she can’t sleep more than two hours at a time. Seasickness, insomnia, and sorrow reduce her health and well-being to frightening levels. For some reason, she does not tell her guardians what happened.

When their vessel is overtaken by American privateers, they are delivered to Thaddeus Lane in Baltimore, the son of Winter and Bennet. Thankfully Thad’s parents are there when Gwyneth arrives.

Gwyneth slowly recovers from her ordeal, but still tells no one what happened to her father. Everyone suspects that her state is due to more than severe seasickness. Gwyneth takes refuge in drawing, and somehow Thad discerns that she has faced some kind of severe trauma.

On the surface, Thad is a merchant who knows almost everyone in Baltimore. Secretly, he’s a key member of the revived Culper Ring.

As Gwyneth and Thad discover each other’s secrets, the British invasion increases. In the midst of it all, Gwyneth can’t help but wonder if her father’s murderer will come after her, too.

I loved this book on so many levels. It was fun that Winter and Bennet from the first book were such a big part of this one as well. I enjoyed Gwyneth and Thad, their personalities and journey and especially Gwyneth’s growth. I loved Thad’s kind but non-nonsense cook, Rosie, who was a niece of Freeman from the first book.

There was also so much edge-of-your-seat intrigue.

I don’t know if I have ever read another book set during the War of 1812. So many write WWII novels, which is fine—I loved Roseanna’s books set then. But it’s nice to learn about other eras as well.

Wikipedia only details the Culper Ring activity through the Revolutionary War. Roseanna shared in her afterword of the first book that a CIA member said in an interview that “The Culper Ring may or may not still exist.” It’s fun it imagine that they continued on behind the scenes for so many years.

The next novel is set during the Civil War, and one more novella comes before. I am looking forward to them.

Ring of Secrets

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Ring of Secrets by Roseanna M. White is the first in her Culper Ring series, fiction based on the real-life spy network set in motion during the Revolutionary War.

When Winter Reeves’ mother died while her father was fighting with the Patriots, her grandparents came to take her to their home in New York City. Her grandparents had never forgiven her mother for marrying outside their station and political affiliations, and they took their anger out on Winter. They instructed that she would say her father was dead, that she would not express any Patriot leanings, and she would marry the man of their choosing as soon as possible so they could get her out of their responsibilities and home.

Since Winter could not be who she really was, she played the part of a beautiful but witless society lady. Her persona gave her a great cover, though, for overhearing information from the Loyalist officers in their social circles. She passed along any useful information to her childhood friend, Robbie Townsend, a mercantile owner who was a vital link in the Culper Ring network.

Bennet Lane was a new arrival in the city. He would not have been considered a catch among the highest society there due to his professorship at Yale, teaching chemistry. But now he was set to inherit a large English estate, making all the tittering mamas in town set their sites on him as a potential son-in-law. Though Bennet usually got tongue-tied and awkward around women, he thought the apparent pursuit of a wife would be a good cover for his real mission: to discover information about a hidden Patriot spy ring.

When Bennet met Winter, he perceived that there was intelligence and spunk underneath the silly exterior she presented to the public. He wanted to know more.

Roseanna has become one of my favorite authors over the last few years, and this novel lived up to the others I read. There are so many layers to this story: the political intrigue and danger, the growing attraction between Winter and Bennet despite their differences, the pursuit of Winter by a Loyalist officer, Isaac Fairchild, Winter’s deep faith and Bennet’s lack of belief in anything he can’t see and test. As I read, I thought, “There is only one way I can see this working out.” The plot did go that direction, but with some surprises along the way.

I thought all the characters were well-drawn. I especially loved Freeman, a free Black man who had been one of Winter’s father’s closest friends and who pledged to protect Winter, and Viney, a poor but faith-filled woman Winter encounters.

Even though I love Roseanna’s writing and knew I’d get to this series eventually, I didn’t like the covers, which put me off the series a bit. It looks like this series was first published in 2019 and then the second edition in 2021. There are two covers for each book. I had this one in my Kindle library. But Audible currently has the books for free with an Audible subscription. I’m thankful they did and I finally got to them. I’ve already started the sequel.

I had not realized when I got the audiobooks that there were novellas in-between the books, not on audio. They are currently packaged together here. The first one, Fairchild’s Lady, takes place just before the French Revolution breaks out. General Fairchild from the first book is in France on two missions: to gather information and to locate a countess and her daughter and bring them to England before the Revolution makes travel impossible. He meets a beauitful woman, Julienne, at a masquerade ball, only to discover later that she is the young woman he is looking for. A dangerous French courtier has laid claim to Julienne, though.

This novella was just as good as the first book. Fairchild was a likeable, honorable character, even though he was on the other side, politically. It was fun to see his story continue.

Roseanna notes in her afterword of Ring of Secrets that the Culper Ring members were not professional spies. They were everyday people seeking to promote the cause of the fledgling United States of America. There were women in their ranks as well as men. The main characters in these books are fictional, but historical characters are mentioned as well.

I’m looking forward to see what else happens with the Culper Ring.

The Lady and the Lionheart

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The Lady and the Lionheart by Joanne Bischof takes place in the Virginia of 1890. Ella Beckley has moved away from heartbreak in her mountain hometown to be a nurse in bigger city. The problem is that her knowledge is self-taught. The doctor with whom she applied won’t hire her for her homespun remedies. But he does let her work as a scullery maid, occasionally allowing her to assist in other ways.

One snowy evening, Ella is nearly bowled over by a tall, panicked stranger with a feverish baby. Busy, the doctor tells Ella to attend to the child. Ella learns that the man is a performer with the new circus in town. The doctor only lets the man and baby stay overnight since the man doesn’t have enough money to continue the baby’s care.

Risking her own job, Ella runs after the man, whom she learned was named Charlie Lionheart. She goes to his tent where she meets Regina, a widow who has become the baby’s godmother and who helps Charlie out. Ella tends the baby and checks back each day.

Circus life is a whole new world for Ella. Charlie has always kept his personal life private from “rubes”–circus outsiders who pay to laugh and gawk at performers but who think circus folks “beneath” fine society. But Ella’s kindness and persistent questions slowly break down his resolve, and he opens up to her.

They grow in appreciation and then attraction to each other, but the situation is impossible. Ella can’t run away and join the circus, after all. And Charlie is contracted for more than Ella knows. Plus they each have secrets from their pasts which have scarred them and affected their futures–secrets they’ve not yet shared.

I listened to the free audiobook version of this story, which did not contain any back matter. I’d love to know what inspired the author to write this story. I loved the subtle theme about not judging a book by its cover. The swarthy, heavily tattooed circus performer may have a heart of gold and a selfless reason for what he does. The pretty, kind nurse may hold a depth of pain behind her smile. But I especially loved when one character makes the point that when people are deeply damaged, and no amount of faith will make the circumstances or the past go away, they are still not to be discarded like a broken vase. They still have great value–and not only value, but beauty.

A few reviews I saw expressed dismay at how people perceived a man’s tattoos. They were offended the author would insinuate that anything was wrong with tattoos. But the author was portraying attitudes in the 1890s. The doctor says early on that tattoos were associated with ex-cons in that era.

I had gotten this audiobook not only because it was free, but especially because I had very much enjoyed the author’s Sons of Blackbird Mountain and Daughters of Northern Shores a few years ago. I felt that this story dragged just a bit (although another reviewer appreciated that it was “unrushed,” so maybe the pacing was a matter of perspective). It seemed the two main characters kept circling around the same issues over and over. There were a few editorial oddities that distracted me.

But despite those minor issues, I enjoyed the story, theme, and characters.

Dakota December and Dakota Destiny

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Lauraine Snelling’s Dakota Plans series is made up of five novellas about Norwegian immigrants to North Dakota in the early 1900s. The first three, Dakota Dawn, Dakota Dream, and Dakota Dusk, were packaged together in an audiobook I reviewed here.

The last two, Dakota December and Dakota Destiny, were packaged together in a separate audiobook.

In Dakota December, Sheriff Caleb Stenesrude’s dog needed to go out during a Christmas Eve blizzard, but then stayed out yipping instead of coming back in. Caleb went out to see what was wrong and found a woman collapsed on a horse. He caught her as she fell and discovered a young child clinging to her. When he brought them into the house, he saw that the woman was with child. Her cries let him know she was in labor. He was in for a unique Christmas Eve.

Later, the woman, Johanna Carlson, is ensconced with her children in a widow’s home until she can recover and the weather settles down. She’s reluctant to tell these good people her troubles. But she needs to get away as soon as possible, before her angry and violent husband finds them.

In Dakota Destiny, Pastor Moen’s daughter, Mary, is grown up and in a teacher’s school, thanks to a wealthy benefactress. Mary is in love with Will, the blacksmith’s apprentice we met in the second book, who is also now grown up. But when World War I begins, Will feels he must enlist. Mary spends the summer taking care of a sick woman’s children while Will goes to training camp and then out to sea. When Mary goes back to school, she receives the devastating news that Will is missing and presumed dead.

She carries on with her school and finds her first job as a teacher. A year later, another man seeks her hand. But she can’t shake the feeling that Will is still alive.

The last book was much shorter and seemed a little underdeveloped. It was odd that characters in books 3 and 4 had the same last name, but didn’t seem to be related to each other. The narrator of all the books was really good, but used a different voice for the pastor in book 4 than in the rest of the books. And I disagreed with a statement in the last book that we are all God’s children (we’re not).

But otherwise, I enjoyed both these books. A few characters from the previous books were rarely mentioned again, but others played prominent parts. I’m going to miss this little community. I especially appreciated an older lady, Mrs. Norgard, and the ways she found to help and encourage people.

Dakota Dawn, Dream, and Dusk

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Dakota series by Lauraine Sneling

Lauraine Snelling wrote a series of five novellas about Norwegian immigrants to North Dakota in the 1900s. The first three, Dakota Dawn, Dakota Dream, and Dakota Dusk, were packaged together in a free-with-my-subscription audiobook. I don’t know what’s up with the picture on the cover—no one dressed that way in the 1900s!

In Dakota Dawn, Norah Johanson’s fiance had gone to America three years ago, promising to send for her. Now she’s on her way. But when she arrives, she finds that Hans has just recently died. Reverend and Mrs. Moen take her in for as long as she needs to decide what to do. She doesn’t have the money to go back home, so she must find work.

Carl Detchman is a quiet but stubborn German immigrant whose wife has just died in childbirth. The Moens have taken care of his young daughter and infant son, but he can’t expect them to do so forever. The Moen’s house guest who has been helping with the children seems capable. But he can’t invite a beauitful young single woman to his home without tongues wagging. So he proposes a marriage of convenience. If she’ll come and keep house and take care of the children until he can make other arrangements, then they can annul the marriage and he’ll pay for her ticket back home.

Norah is shocked at first, but agrees. And, of course, the two fall in love. This is a frequently seen story line with an inevitable conclusion, but it was enjoyable to see the two work through their issues and come first to appreciate, and then to love each other.

In Dakota Dream, Clara Johanson, Norah’s sister, received a ticket to her sister’s town and a picture from a handsome stranger offering to pay her way to Dakota if she’ll be his wife. Clara agrees. But when she arrives at her sister’s house, no one knows who this man is.

What she doesn’t know is that Jude Weinlander brought Clara over to play a trick on his brother, Dag. He signed Dag’s name to the letter but sent his own picture. Dag is tasked with meeting Clara at the train station and taking her to the Detchman’s. He does not make a good first impression, with matted hair and beard and filth from the livery where he works.

Clara stays with her sister until the pastor asks if she can come and stay with an elderly woman who is not doing well and needs full time care. Clara has no idea the change this will make in her life—and in her relationship with Dag.

In Dakota Dusk, Jude Weinlander is disgusted. His trick on Dag backfired. He’s run out of money due to drinking and gambling and has to move with his wife back to his mother’s house.

When a fire destroys his home, after he heals, he becomes a drifter, traveling from place to place looking for work. He doesn’t drink or gamble any more, but he can’t go home. He comes upon a town rebuilding their school after a prairie fire. He stays to help, and then is asked to stay on to help rebuild other homes.

He can’t help but notice the pretty school teacher, Rebekka Stenesrude. But he can never pursue a relationship. He’s not worthy. No one could love him if they learned what he had done.

These stories were set some years after Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series, so there are many similar incidents—grasshopper infestations, prairies fires, etc .But these stories are told primarily from the viewpoint of immigrants adjusting to a new land. I felt the same way I did after reading Laura’s books—glad I was born in my time and not hers!

There were so many hardships in those times. The services for help that we take for granted didn’t exist then, so people had to help each other, and accept help, or die.

But great faith and character emerged as well. I enjoyed these stories as well as the characters and the obstacles they overcame.

The Space Between Words

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In The Space Between Words by Michele Phoenix, Jessica and two friends in Denver take a vacation to Paris. Though they’ll do some sight-seeing, they are mainly there to scout out treasures at antique stores and flea markets.

But then Jessica is shot during the Paris attacks in 2015. She’s traumatized by all she saw in the attacks. When she heals enough to be moved, she wants to get out of Paris as quickly as possible.

But one of her friends talks her into staying, at least for a little while. In one flea market, Jessica find an antique sewing box that seems to draw her. Back at her room, she discovers a secret compartment in the box which contains several sheets of handwritten paper and a few pages from an antique French Bible.

A new friend helps Jessica translate the ancient French. The sheets held the writing of a young woman named Adeline Baillard in 1695. She and her family were Huguenots when the Catholic King outlawed their faith and sanctioned torture and persecution against them. Adeline’s family gets her sister and brother and his family out, but Adeline stays with her parents. She’s a teacher and wants to help her students as much as she can while there is time.

As Jessica reads Adeline’s words, she feels compelled to find what happened to her and her family, especially her sister. Her own healing and mental and spiritual health are wrapped up in Adeline’s fate. She can’t understand how Adeline could believe so strongly in a God who would allow such atrocities to happen.

I’m sorry to say that I had completely forgotten about the Paris attacks of 2015. The year isn’t given in the novel, but the details seemed more reality than fiction, so I looked up and read more about them in Wikipedia.

This is the first book of Michele’s I have read, and I was captivated. So much of the story is touching, but subtle humor is sprinkled throughout as well. One surprise twist was heart-wrenching.

Just a few quotes that stood out to me:

I knew he worried, as I did, that that part of my life had been amputated by fear.

Father held what remained of our Bible in both hands and declared, “This is the Truth that binds us to each other and to God. These are the words exhorting us to faithfulness and strength. These are the pages that emancipated our faith from the dictates of a King. We will carry them with us as a testament to our resistance, as a reminder of all the Huguenot community has endured” (p. 115).

My grandmother believed in the power of words, in the capacity of story to transcend both time and place. This scroll is evidence of the temerity of her escape, a tribute to the ancestors who lost their world to save their faith (p. 288).

There were a couple of odd places where a child seemed to see someone who wasn’t there. But other than that, I loved everything about this book.

Books Read in 2022

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It’s been another great reading year, with a variety of new and old, fiction and nonfiction, mostly good, a handful not so much. By my count, I’ve read 79 books this year—a smidgen fewer than the last couple of years.

I’ll post my favorites tomorrow. The titles link back to my reviews. (MTBR) at the end of some titles refers to the Mount TBR Reading Challenge, where we read books we already owned before the year began. I noted them here instead of making a separate list.

Nonfiction:

  1. 100 Best Bible Verses to Overcome Worry and Anxiety, a devotional book by various authors (MTBR)
  2. Aging With Grace: Flourishing in an Anti-Aging Culture by Sharon Betters and Susan Hunt
  3. Always, Only Good: A Journey of Faith Through Mental Illness by Shelly Garlock Hamilton
  4. Another Gospel: A Lifelong Christian Seeks Truth in Response to Progressive Christianity by Alisa Childers
  5. Be Alive (John 1-12): Get to Know the Living Savior by Warren Wiersbe (MTBR)
  6. Be Compassionate (Luke 1-13): Let the World Know Jesus Cares by Warren Wiersbe (MTBR)
  7. Be Courageous (Luke 14-24): Let the World Know Jesus Cares by Warren Wiersbe (MTBR
  8. Be Determined (Nehemiah): Standing Firm in the Face of Opposition by Warren W. Wiersbe (MTBR)
  9. Be Distinct (2 Kings and 2 Chronicles): Standing Firmly Against the World’s Tides by Warren Wiesrbe (MTBR)
  10. Be Encouraged (2 Corinthians): God Can Turn Your Trials Into Triumphs by Warren W. Wiersbe (MTBR)
  11. Be Free (Galatians): Exchange Legalism for True Spirituality by Warren Wiersbe (MTBR)
  12. Be Responsible (1 Kings): Being Good Stewards of God’s Gifts by Warren Wiersbe (MTBR)
  13. Be Restored (2 Samuel & 1 Chronicles): Trusting God to See Us Through by Warren W. Wiersbe (MTBR)
  14. Be Successful (1 Samuel): Attaining Wealth That Money Can’t Buy by Warren W. Wiersbe (MTBR)
  15. Be Wise (1 Corinthians): Discern the Difference Between Man’s Knowledge and God’s Wisdom by Warren W. Wiersbe (MTBR)
  16. Daily Light on the Daily Path compiled by Samuel Bagster
  17. “Don’t Call Me Spry”: Creative Possibilities for Later Life by Win Couchman
  18. The Enchanted Places: A Childhood Memoir by Christopher Milne
  19. Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown (MTBR)
  20. The Four Loves by C. S. Lewis (MTBR)
  21. Heaven and Nature Sing: 25 Advent Reflections to Bring Joy to the World by Hannah Anderson
  22. IBS for Dummies by Carolyn Dean and L. Christine Wheeler (MTBR)
  23. I Must Decrease: Biblical Inspiration and Encouragement for Dieters by Janice Thompson (MTBR)
  24. Jesus Led Me All the Way by Margaret Stringer (MTBR)
  25. Joy: A Godly Woman’s Adornment by Lydia Brownback (MTBR)
  26. Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle by Lady Carnarvon.(MTBR, audiobook)
  27. The Middle Matters: Why That (Extra)Ordinary Life Looks Really Good on You by Lisa-Jo Baker (MTBR)
  28. O Love That Will not Let Me Go: Facing Death with Courageous Confidence, complied by Nancy Guthrie
  29. The Path Through the Trees by Christopher Milne )Audiobook)
  30. Ten Time Management Choices that Can Change Your Life by Sandra Felton and Marsha Sims (MTBR)
  31. Treasures of Encouragement: Women Helping Women by Sharon W. Betters
  32. Where I End: A Story of Tragedy, Truth, and Rebellious Hope by Katherine Elizabeth Clark (MTBR)
  33. Women and Stress: A Practical Approach to Managing Tension by Jean Lush and Pam Vredevelt (MTBR)
  34. The Writer’s Desk by Jill Krementz (MTBR)

Classics:

  1. Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin (Audiobook)
  2. The Confessions of St. Augustine (Audiobook)
  3. Dracula by Bram Stoker
  4. Framley Parsonage by Anthony Trollope (MTBR, Audiobook)
  5. Hospital Sketches by Louisa May Alcott (Audiobook)
  6. The House at Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne (Audiobook)
  7. The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope (Audiobook)
  8. Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell (Audiobook)
  9. Now We Are Six by A. A. Milne
  10. The Small House at Allington by Anthony Trollope (Audiobook)
  11. The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting (Audiobook)
  12. To Sir, With Love by E. R. Braithwaite (Audiobook)
  13. Victorian Short Stories of Successful Marriages by Elizabeth Gaskell, Thomas Hardy, and others.
  14. When We Were Very Young by A. A. Milne
  15. Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne

Christian Fiction:

  1. Bringing Maggie Home by Kim Vogel Sawyer (Audiobook)
  2. A Daily Rate by Grace Livingston Hill (Audiobook)
  3. Enchanted Isle by Melanie Dobson
  4. The Fifth Avenue Story Society by Rachel Hauck (Audiobook)
  5. Half Finished by Lauraine Snelling (MTBR)
  6. The Hatmaker’s Heart by Carla Stewart (MTBR)
  7. The Italian Ballerina by Kristy Cambron (Audiobook)
  8. Just 18 Summers by Michelle Cox and Rene Gutteridge (MTBR)
  9. A Lady Unrivaled by Roseanna M. White (Audiobook)
  10. Midnight, Christmas Eve by Andy Clapp (MTBR)
  11. The Lost Heiress by Roseanna M. White (MTBR)
  12. The Paris Dressmaker by Kristy Cambron (MTBR, Audiobook)
  13. The Reluctant Duchess by Roseanna M. White (Audiobook)
  14. The Road Home by Malissa Chapin
  15. The Search by Grace Livingston Hill (Audiobook)
  16. Shadowed by Grace: A Story of Monuments Men by Cara Putman (MTBR)
  17. Shadows in the Mind’s Eye by Janyre Tromp
  18. Snowed In for Christmas by Cami Checketts (Audiobook)
  19. Something Good by Vanessa Miller
  20. The Stranger by Melanie Dobson (MTBR)
  21. Three Fifty-Seven: Timing Is Everything by Hank Stewart and Kendra Norman-Bellamy (Audiobook)
  22. To Treasure an Heiress by Roseanna White (Audiobook)
  23. Worthy of Legend by Roseanna M. White

Other Fiction:

  1. Call the Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times by Jennifer Worth (MTBR, Audiobook)
  2. The Christmas Hirelings by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (MTBR, Audiobook)
  3. The Girl in the Painting by Tea Cooper (MTBR)
  4. The London House by Katherine Reay (audiobook)
  5. Mourning Dove by Claire Fullerton (MTBR)
  6. Once Upon a Wardrobe by Patti Callahan (Audiobook)
  7. The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow (MTBR, Audiobook)

And that just about wraps it up for 2022! I’m close to finishing a couple more, but I’ll save them to review at the beginning of next year so they don’t get lost in the shuffle.

Reading is one of my highlights, so I was very thankful to be able to make time for it.

How was your reading year? The number of books is not as important as whether the books are enjoyable and edifying. In that sense, I’ve had a great year indeed.

Reading Challenge Wrap-Ups

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I enjoy participating in reading challenges and sharing books I have enjoyed. Most of these challenges involve the type of books I would be reading anyway. The only difficulty comes in the time it takes for record-keeping. I haven’t decided yet which challenges I will participate in next year. But I can recommend any of these.

Most of the challenge hosts require a wrap-up post at the end of the year. I shared my Back to the Classics Challenge Wrap-Up, hosted by Karen at Books and Chocolate here. But I decided to include all the rest in one post so as not to be tedious for readers.

Bev at My Reader’s Block hosts the Mount TBR Reading Challenge. The idea is to read books you already owned before the start of this year. Bev has made levels in increments of twelve, each named after a mountain, and we’re to choose a level to shoot for. Even though I’ve reached Mt. Ararat (48 books) the last couple of years, I decided to play it safe and stick with Mt. Vancouver (36 books).

That turned out to be a wise decision as I just made it with 38 books. Instead of making a separate list, I marked the books in this category with (MTBR) on my list of all the books I read this year.

Shelly Rae at Book’d Out hosts the Nonfiction Reader Challenge. She provided 12 categories of nonfiction, and participants chose which level they want to aim for. Thankfully, this year she has included a Nonfiction Grazer category where we set our own goals for how many and what kind of nonfiction to read. That worked best for me this year.

I read a total of 33 non-fiction books this year, which can be seen on my Books Read in 2022 post.

As to my personal goals for this challenge:

Even though I didn’t hit every category I wanted to, I did more in others, and I feel I had a rich and varied nonfiction reading experience this year.

The Audiobook Challenge is hosted by Caffeinated Reader. I aimed for the Binge Listener level at 20-30. I finished 30, so I was right on target. I also marked these on my list of books read this year. I posted what I had listened to through June at the check-in here. Here are the ones I listened to through the end of the year:

The Historical Fiction Reading Challenge is hosted by The Intrepid Reader. I aimed for the Medieval level of 15 books. I completed 22.

As you can tell, Roseanna M. White and Kristy Cambron are favorites in the category.

I’ve included split-time novels here, which have both a modern and a historic timeline. I’ve never been sure whether classics count—books written before our time but were modern in the time in which they were written. If so, I’d have eleven more.

And finally:

The Literary Christmas challenge hosted by Tarissa at In the Bookcase. For this I read:

I also started Hope for Christmas by Malissa Chapin, but haven’t finished it yet. Maybe I will by the end of the year.

I didn’t get quite as many in this category as I had hoped to, but we had a very busy December.

Whew. It’s been a good year of reading.

Worthy of Legend

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Worthy of Legend is the third installment in Roseanna M. White’s Secrets of the Isles trilogy. The first was The Nature of a Lady; the second was To Treasure an Heiress.

The Secrets of the Isles involves two different groups in search of legendary pirate treasure. One loves “the hunt” and the thrill of archeological finds. The other wants the fame and fortune of such discoveries and employs underhanded means in the race to discover treasure.

Lady Emily Scofield is good friends with the people in the first group. But her father and brother are the primary instigators in the bad group.

Emily has lived her entire life in the background of her brother, Nigel. Nigel was her father’s favorite, and his misdeeds were excused away. Emily is expected to desert her friends and show loyalty to her family. But she can’t.

Instead of writing off her family completely, though, she tries to show love to them. Her friends fear she’ll be taken advantage of again.

Bram Sinclair, Earl of Telford, is the brother of the heroine in the first book. He has had an interest in the King Arthur legends since childhood. As he and his friends piece together clues to the artifact that both groups are pursuing, he realizes what they are looking for might be related to King Arthur. They try to keep this information secret from the other group.

As Bram and Emily’s group works together, Bram is concerned for Emily. He recognizes her conflict with her family and her lack of confidence and self-esteem from having been dismissed and overlooked for so many years. As he tries to encourage her, he discovers a true treasure in her character and heart.

A secondary plot line involves Emily’s maid, Thomasina, who has, unknown to Emily, been violated by Nigel. When a young man from the islands becomes interested in Tommie, she feels he would not be if he knew what had happened to her.

A couple of my favorite quotes from the book:

And if she lost everything all over again . . . well then, she’d just have to trust that the Lord could do more with her shattered than He could with her as she was now, barely holding together. That He meant her to be a mosaic instead of a whole.

Your worth, Thomasina, rests on no one else’s opinion of you. It doesn’t rest even on you. It rests in the Lord. He sees your heart, your soul. And that is all the approval any of us needs.

Bram and Emily were background characters in the previous books, and I enjoyed getting to know them better. I also loved the humorous bantering between Bram and his friend, Sheridan.

I especially liked the fact that these books were in a place I had never heard of, the Isles of Scilly. Now I feel I know the isles and the people on them. And the time frame of the early 1900s isn’t one we see often in historical fiction.

I enjoyed these stories very much and am going to miss these characters.