The Silver Shooter (Rose Gallagher #3) by Erin Lindsey

 

 

 

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Paranormal, Mystery
Content: Strong Language

It's the spring of 1887, and Rose Gallagher is finally coming into her own. She's the proud owner of a lovely little home near Washington Square, where she lives with her mother and friend Pietro, and she's making a name for herself as a Pinkerton agent with a specialty in things . . . otherworldly. She and her partner Thomas are working together better than ever, and mostly managing to push aside romantic feelings for one another. Mostly.

Things are almost too good to be true—so Rose is hardly surprised when Theodore Roosevelt descends on them like a storm cloud, hiring them for a mysterious job out west. A series of strange occurrences in the Badlands surrounding his ranch has Roosevelt convinced something supernatural is afoot.

It began with livestock disappearing from the range, their bodies later discovered torn apart by something monstrously powerful. Now people are dying, too. Meanwhile, a successful prospector has gone missing, and rumors about his lost stash of gold have attracted treasure hunters from far and wide – but they keep disappearing, too. To top it all off, this past winter, a mysterious weather phenomenon devastated the land, leaving the locals hungry, broke, and looking for someone to blame.

With tensions mounting and the body count rising, Roosevelt fears a single spark will be all it takes to set the Badlands aflame. It’s up to Rose and Thomas to get to the bottom of it, but they’re against the clock and an unknown enemy, and the west will prove wilder than they could possibly imagine…


This is the third installment in the Gilded Age Mystery series, and it was quite enjoyable. I like the change of setting and the fact that Rose was able to do more as a Pinkerton agent. I especially liked that Theodore Roosevelt was included in the story. He was such a larger than life character, and I feel like the author conveyed that really well in this story.

This is a historical mystery series with a paranormal twist and I really like that about it. It makes it a bit different from the other mysteries I read. However, the paranormal element in this one was just ok. I did not enjoy it as much as I did in the two previous books.

I liked that the romance heated up a bit in this book, but the ending was kind of sad. It definitely made we want to read the next book, because things just can't end that way. I need to know what happens next!

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with an ARC of this book. 

 

 

 

A Portrait of Loyalty (The Codebreakers, #3) by Roseanna M. White

 

 

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

 

Zivon Marin was one of Russia's top cryptographers, until the October Revolution tore apart his world. Forced to flee after speaking out against Lenin and separated from his brother along the way, he arrives in England driven by a growing anger and determined to offer his services to the Brits.

Lily Blackwell sees the world best through the lens of a camera--and possesses unsurpassed skill when it comes to retouching and recreating photographs. With her father's connections in propaganda, she's recruited to the intelligence division, even though her mother would disapprove.

After Captain Blackwell invites Zivon to dinner one evening, a friendship blooms between him and Lily. He sees patterns in what she deems chaos; she sees beauty in a world he thought destroyed. But both have secrets they're unwilling to share. When her photographs reveal that someone has been following Zivon, his loyalties are called into question--and his enemies are discovered to be far closer than he'd feared.

I was intrigued by Lily in the previous book and was really glad that this one was about her and also Zivon, who we met in the last book as well. I enjoyed reading how their love blossomed, and the way they were able to help and comfort each other through the different ways they saw the world. 

One thing I liked about this book and the one before it is that we didn't have the typical 'misunderstanding between love interests' trope where there is a lack of communication involved. It was so refreshing to read a romance without that, where the love interests had faith in each other and never doubted each other, even if they didn't have all the information about something. Thank you Roseanna M. White for writing your characters this way!

Yet again I enjoyed the historical aspects of this series, which included the Russian Revolution, Russian cryptographers, early photography, and the Spanish Flu epidemic. This was a great conclusion to the series and I'll miss it, but I still have other books to read by this author. Up next will be the Ladies of the Manor series.

If you are interested in reading books by this author I would suggest reading in the order they were published:

Ladies of the Manor
Shadows Over England
Codebreakers

That way you will meet the characters in the order they are introduced and won't miss out on knowing who they are when they make appearances in other books. 

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

On Wings of Devotion (The Codebreakers #2) by Roseanna M. White

 

 

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

 

All of England thinks Phillip Camden a monster—a man who deliberately caused the deaths of his squadron. But as nurse Arabelle Denler watches the so-dubbed "Black Heart" every day, she sees something far different: a hurting man desperate for mercy. And when their paths twist together and he declares himself her new protector, she realizes she has her own role to play in his healing.

Phillip Camden would have preferred to die that day with his squadron rather than be recruited to the Admiralty's codebreaking division. The threats he receives daily are no great surprise and, in his opinion, well deserved. What comes as a shock is the reborn desire to live that Arabelle inspires in him.

But when an old acquaintance shows up and seems set on using him in a plot that has the codebreakers of Room 40 in a frenzy, new affections are put to the test.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed this second book in the Codebreakers series, more so than the first one. Phillip was an interesting addition to the last book, although not very likable, so I was apprehensive about him being a main character in this book. I ended up being really glad his story was told here, and I got to see a different side of him. I also loved how his romance with Arabelle began and progressed in this story. 

This is a story of love and redemption, and the characters were all very well drawn. There are characters from the two previous series that are tied to this one, Shadows Over England, and Ladies of the Manor that make brief appearances. It would have been nice to know who Brook, Rowena, and Ella were from Ladies of the Manor, but I haven't read that series yet. Needless to say I'm looking forward to reading that series when I'm done with this one.

This is Christian historical fiction with romance, and I love the mix of romance, espionage, and history. As usual for this author, there was lots of great historic detail, that included real events and real historic characters. This time there is a character who is a spy and assassin for the German's who was heavily inspired by both Mata Hari and Beatrice Von Brunner. If you don't know much about them I suggest looking them up. That's one thing I've come to love about this series. It inspires me to find out more about people and events I don't know a lot about.