An Hour Unspent by Roseanna M. White

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult, Christian
Genre: Historical Romance, Mystery
Content: Clean



Once London’s top thief, Barclay Pearce has turned his back on his life of crime and now uses his skills for a nation at war. But not until he rescues a clockmaker’s daughter from a mugging does he begin to wonder what his future might hold.

This third and final book in the Shadows Over England companion series was just as entertaining as the previous two books. Roseanna M. White has become one of my favorite Christian romance authors. I love the historical settings of her books and the added mystery involved in each of them. This series involved spies during World War I. She makes sure to include little bits of history in each of her books, including real people from history who make appearances.

My one problem with this book, just like most historical romance, is that there is a silly thing that breaks the couple up for a while. It's always either a lie or a misunderstanding. This time around it was a lie that was believed way too easily. I began to dislike the character Evelina to an extent at this point, and it took until the end of the book for me to really like her again. I do wish that authors would come up with some other way to create drama in their romance stories. On the other hand I loved Barclay throughout the book. It was really nice to get to read his story this time around.

Other than that I thought this was a good ending to the series. All three books included themes that I found interesting. The first book was about books -so that was a given- and the second one was about music. This time around it's clocks and mechanical inventions. I liked the clock-maker aspect of the book and all of the toys and things he invented, and the invention of the synchronization gear for the bi-planes during the war was a good plot devise. This time around, the historical figure we meet is the inventor of the Rolex watch. We see the beginnings of the use and popularity of the wristwatch, an idea that was embraced by the military because of its ease of use during wartime.

Thanks to NetGalley and Bethany House for providing me with an ARC of this book.