Kati's Book Reviews
Author RoseAnna M. White
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award nominated author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary. She and her family make their home in the beautiful mountains of West Virginia. You can learn more about her and her stories at www.RoseannaMWhite.com.
Gritty Suspense Steamy Romance
Novel Review
Shadowed Loyalty
by Roseanna M. White
If you like books that are engaging due to high-stakes conflicts, seamlessly woven into the plot, that affect multiple characters, then Shadowed Loyalty by Roseanna M. White is your next read. This Prohibition-era standalone novel, featuring multiple points of view and weighty decisions about love and forgiveness, enticed me to keep reading because of the depth of the characters White portrays. Heartstrings are tugged hard as the main characters are forced to make decisions that would have ripple effects lasting for generations to come.
Through her characters, White exposes that we are all flawed, but that God loves us no matter how dark our world gets. While protagonist Sabina Mancari rides a roller coaster of chaos as she discovers the activities her Chicago Mafioso family participates in, and how deeply dug their sins are, she also must decide how deep her relationships will go.
White has inserted some clean-but-gritty scenes that involve prostitutes and the men who frequented them. The men seem to think it's all in a day's events to spend time with these gals, and their wives are expected to just deal with it. While this could be triggering to some, White has done it without taking the scenes too far. The story is set in the 1920s and to write it any other way would be unrealistic.
While this is a clean romance book, I would not place it in the Sweet Romance genre because, in my eyes, this book is for adults who like clean but gritty romance novels. I would gift this book to someone who likes gritty sensual romance so they can see that the sex does not need to go too far for the story to be a good and enticing read.
Ring of Secrets (Culper Ring Series Book #1)
by Roseanna M. White
1779—This exciting romantic spy novel from Roseanna M. White combines fascinating cloak-and-dagger secrets with a tale of love and intrigue during the Revolutionary War.
Winter Reeves is an aristocratic Patriot forced to hide her heart amid the Loyalists of the City of New York. She has learned to keep her ears open so she can pass information on British movements to Robbie Townsend, her childhood friend, and his spy ring. If she's caught, if she's hung for espionage...well, she won't be. Robbie has taught her the tools of the trade: the wonders of invisible ink, drop locations and, most importantly, a good cover.
Bennet Lane returns to New York from his Yale professorship with one goal: to find General Washington's spy hidden among the ranks of the elite. Searching for a wife was supposed to be nothing more than a convenient cover story for his mission, but when he meets Winter, with her too-intelligent eyes in her too-blank face, he finds a mystery that can't be ignored.
Both believers...and both committed to a separate cause. Will their faith in God lead them to a shared destiny or lives lived apart?
From Amazon
Kati's Book Review of Ring of Secrets
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Ring of Secrets is the first novel in the Culper Ring Series by Roseanna M. White. White's cloak-and-dagger spy novel takes you back to 1779 when the Culper spy ring worked undercover to help General George Washington win the war against the British. After Winter Reeves witnesses the murder of her Culper-allied father in England, she flees to America, leaving her fiancé behind. Professor Bennet Lane arrives in America on a mission to discover who is involved in the Culper spy ring. The two would-be lovers are thrown into an assignment to help save what would soon be a new country. With so much depending on the secrets they hide and missives they deliver, it becomes difficult to know whom one can trust–even each other.
The rich cast of characters in this tale makes for an engaging escape into their world, and I found myself cheering for some and hoping that others would get what they deserved. I enjoyed the tension between Winter and Bennet as they dodged the dangers lurking behind the shadows and decoded messages that some Loyalists were willing to kill for. Needless to say, I was invested in the outcome, and that always makes for a good story.
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Until Next Time,
Shalom!
Kati Rose Zylman
Author Jody Hedlund
Jody lives in central Michigan with her husband, five busy children, and five spoiled cats. When she’s not penning another of her page-turning stories, she loves to spend her time reading, especially when it also involves consuming coffee and chocolate. Jody Hedlund is the best-selling author of over forty books and is the winner of numerous awards. She writes sweet historical romances with plenty of sizzle. Find out more at jodyhedlund.com.
A Cowboy for Keeps (Colorado Cowboys Book #1) by Jody Hedlund
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Greta Nilsson's trip west to save her ailing little sister, Astrid, could not have gone more wrong. First, bandits hold up her stagecoach, stealing all her money. Then, upon arriving in Fairplay, Colorado, she learns the man she was betrothed to as a mail-order bride has died. Homeless, penniless, and jobless, Greta and her sister are worse off than when they started.
Wyatt McQuaid is struggling to get his new ranch up and running and is in town to purchase cattle when the mayor proposes the most unlikely of bargains. He'll invest in a herd of cattle for Wyatt's ranch if Wyatt agrees to help the town become more respectable by marrying and starting a family with Greta. But when old insecurities and surprising revolutions arise, can a union born out of desperation survive?
From Amazon
The Rose and the Thistle by Laura Frantz
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In 1715, Lady Blythe Hedley's father is declared an enemy of the British crown because of his Jacobite sympathies, forcing her to flee her home in northern England. Secreted to the tower of Wedderburn Castle in Scotland, Lady Blythe awaits who will ultimately be crowned king. But in a house with seven sons and numerous servants, her presence soon becomes known.
No sooner has Everard Hume lost his father, Lord Wedderburn, than Lady Hedley arrives with the clothes on her back and her mistress in tow. He has his own problems--a volatile brother with dangerous political leanings, an estate to manage, and a very young brother in need of comfort and direction in the wake of losing his father. It would be best for everyone if he could send this misfit heiress on her way as soon as possible.
Drawn into a whirlwind of intrigue, shifting alliances, and ambitions, Lady Blythe must be careful whom she trusts. Her fortune, her future, and her very life are at stake. Those who appear to be adversaries may turn out to be allies--and those who pretend friendship may be enemies.
From Amazon