Masterful!

Once a Rebel (Rogues Redeemed #2) by Mary Jo Putney.  

 The research by Putney gives a solid background to a story that spans some years and encompasses betrayal, heartache, the 1812 British Invasion of Washington and Baltimore, race relations, slavery and courage.

When sixteen year old Catherine Callista Brooke  was being forced into marriage with a man old enough to be her father, her best friend "Lord George Gordon Richard Augustus Audley, third and most worthless son of the Marquess of Kingston", suggested elopement to Scotland.

What followed was a horrendous tale that forced the two apart and set them upon very different paths.

Now, fifteen years and many life changes later, Gordon, called Richard by Callie (one of two people only ever to do so) is asked to go to America to find a Mrs. Audley. Curiously he wonders if they are related somehow as Audley is his name. Richard arrives as the British are attacking Washington, and just as Mrs. Audley is being seized upon by looters. A kindly death seems the best of options being presented her.

Imagine his surprise when the mysterious Mrs. Audley is the Callie of his youth. Callie is even more astonished when the friend she'd been told had died appears back from the dead effecting a dramatic rescue.

And this is less than a quarter of the way into the story. 

I found the moments throughout of Callie dealing with what the future might hold for her and the letting go insightful.

This a gripping tale that had me reading over breakfast, on the subway and in between various appointments until I'd finished.

Explosive stuff! A fitting follow up in the Rogue Redeemed series.

A NetGalley ARC

*****