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Hooked...but…!

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The Duke's Enforcer  (Duke’s Guard #8) by C.H. Admirand    ⭐️⭐️⭐️ My guilty pleasure continues, but sadly I was not as enamoured of the Duke’s Enforcer as I have been other titles in the series. I love the Guards but the storylines have become somewhat repetitive the last several times. You know, hero with a backbone of steel and a heart of gold rescues a damsel in distress from a really bad situation. In this case it’s Darby Garahan who falls in love with the much terrified young woman, Miss Aimee Anderson. Down on her luck, Aimee has answered an advertisement to work as a milliner, only to find she’s destined for a brothel. After rescuing Aimee, Darby proposes marriage to save her. The marriage is strewn with boulders of self doubt and it’s our hero’s job to cast the rescued damsel’s fears out. The marriage is a work in progress. Of course there’s more! Despite my quibbles, despite the well worn plot, I must admit I just can’t stop reading any new additions to the series. A Drag

Romance and tension!

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The Soldier's Impossible Love  (One Night in Blackhaven #3) by Mary Lancaster   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️  I wanted some light historical romantic reading. This was just the ticket! A soldier, a survivor of Waterloo, Major Roderick Vale, is plagued by dreams and strong reactions to loud noises. He meets one of the daughter’s of their  neighbor, the Earl of Braithwaire, Lady Helen Conway, at the local Blackhaven Assembly Rooms Ball. Vale’s just ended an affair with a wealthy widow, Meg Maven (from trade). She’s been planning on using marriage to Roderick as her entree into high society. That’s nowhere on the Major’s radar. He’s already ended the relationship.  Meg won’t take no for an answer. She sets her sights on Helen who has helped Roderick. There is more to Helen than meets the eye. One shouldn’t underestimate her. Suffice it to say we have the evil widow making trouble, the young innocent exploring her feelings, the injured soldier trying to heal, families concerned about their siblings, and

Dark times in Germany!

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The Lost Book of Bonn : A Novel  by Brianna Labuskes       ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Gripping story about sisters who lived in Bonn just before WWII. Annalise the older loved to hike and party with her friends in a group called the Edelweiss Pirates. Later they took more and more subversive action against the ruling Nazi party Christina, the younger sister liked to follow rules. She became a member of the  Bund Deutscher Mädel, promoting young Aryan women who followed rules, who fit in, who presented the ideal woman who embraced her place in the social fabric. Widowed Emmy Clarke is a librarian who’s sent to Berlin in 1946 to look through the acres of books seized by the Nazis. Many are valuable. The scope of looting by the Nazis is phenomenal. Here she meets Major Wesley Arnold, part of the Monuments Men team. Emma chances upon a book on her first day that has an inscription, beginning “to Annelise” ending with Eitan.” Emmy senses a deeper story behind the inscription. Emmy is inspired to see if she

A cold case missing person inquiry resurfaces!

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Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?  by Nicci French      ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1990 December, Etty Salter walked to a family friend’s barn where they were holding a fiftieth birthday party for her father Alec. She was looking for her mother Charlie. Etty is concerned. She looks everywhere and finally contacts the local police. Charlie never arrived. Her children never saw her again A few days later Duncan Ackerley disappeared and was found in the river against a buoy. Suicide was the verdict. The general consensus is that Duncan murdered Charlie and then killed himself. Now, thirty years later the case is being looked at again. Police procedure had not been followed and basically mistakes—many missteps had happened  Now it’s 2022 and Detective Inspector Maude has been asked to reopen the case. Difficulties arise with lost evidence and files, and the attitude of the local police Another deadly occurrence happens that’s possibly linked to the 1990 case. The woman who was clearing out the Slater home

Forbidden love

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The Phoenix Bride : A Novel  by Natasha Siegel     ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Don’t get me wrong, I love a good historical novel. When I first picked this up I just wasn’t in the mood, for something quite as deep. So I read a few lighter novels and then returned. I’m so glad I went back. The story has it all, illicit love, tragedy and rebirth. I loved the sound premise to this story. Set in 1666 London. Time of the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy and King Charles. Cecilia Thorowgood’s husband has died of the plague. Cecilia is distraught. She’s suffers various doctors paraded before her trying to cure her of melancholy. David Mendes is a physician come Portugal, now living in a Jewish neighbourhood in Aldegate.  He has been asked to treat Cecilia.  The story extends into a burgeoning friendship between Cecelia and David,  Cecilia’s increasing fear of entrapment, a  proposal of marriage from her sister’s husband’s nephew, her growing love for David, his fear of the harsh opinions of others (with goo

A missing child!

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A Noble Scheme  Imposters #2) by Roseanna M. White    ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Interestingly I’d been thinking about the previous book in this series not so long ago. Then this title popped up. What was it that stayed with me?  The background that had Imposters Inc. birthed perhaps?  Belonging to the top echelons of Edwardian English society, Lady Marigold and her brother Lord Yates, Earl of Fairfax, upon their father’s death find that he had spent all their funds and more on the joyous thrills he had surrounded himself, and them with. To finance the menagerie at The Towers they begin an investigative agency, very exclusive, called The Imposters Ltd. One has to be prepared for the overt faith perspective underlying this tale. Themes of forgiveness, love, integrity and anger feature strongly.  Lady Marigold marries Sir Merritt Livingston. Their honeymoon over, work now beckons. Thankfully Merritt has no objections to joining the Imposters in their mission. The group have been called on to solve the pr

Dark days of the past haunt and beckon.

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The Berlin Letters : A Cold War Novel   by Katherine Reay     ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Improbable? Possibly not. When the wall dividing Berlin went up, the world gasped. When the wall came down the world was ecstatic. Luisa Voekler is a baby when the wall interrupts lives. Her mother, Monica, throws Luisa across the razor wire to her grandparents. Monica attempts to follow, climbing through the wire. At the last minute she is noticed by the guards. Luisa’s father Harris is a successful journalist in East Berlin, a true believer, a product of the benevolent state.  It’s only years later he becomes a subversive. Her grandparents take Luisa and flee to the states. It seems there is something about her grandfather that made him an asset to those there. He’s an expert cryptographer. Luisa’s grandfather taught her from a child to decipher riddles and codes. She even had to solve codes to find her birthday presents. When older, Luisa trains with the CIA as an agent but she’s suddenly moved from that program