keira anne with an e

Henrietta Maxwell lives two lives: one as a quirky and eccentric heiress, the other disguised as a male investigative reporter.

No one can know her secret.

But when a young fireman discovers her double identity, she finds herself forced to trust him… especially as he begins to help her in her latest case– a string of mysterious fires.

When tragedy strikes their city, however, their lives are changed, and they find themselves forced to trust each other even further… but will that trust lead to more?

Please note: Thank you to Barbour Fiction for providing this complimentary copy via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are my own. Also, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. You can find this book here.

⭐⭐⭐ (3/5 stars)

I picked this one up after reading Lindsey (from Books for Christian Girls)’s review, and I was so delighted to be able to try out a new Christian fiction author. Honestly, the time period was so unique, and though it was a very interesting story, with a lot of potential for researching (especially about firemen at the turn of the century).

Truth be told, I knew practically nothing about a lot of the topics that we touched on during this story, but it was the newspaper elements that intrigued me the most. I’m not used to seeing such detail in historical books, so I really appreciated that element, and the research that was obviously behind it.

Our characters were not particular favorites of mine, but I did love seeing a tall, glasses-wearing heroine in a historical novel. It was very refreshing, and definitely made me smile. To be honest, I think her double identity was a fair bit unbelievable, especially because she kept having long conversations with the same characters under her two identities, and no one ever caught on.

The historical elements involving the fire were– quite frankly– too difficult and sad for my taste. I appreciated the historical accuracy, but it was just upsetting to read about, and definitely brought down my rating a fair bit. Less sensitive readers would probably find it a lot more enjoyable on that note.

I really did just want to make these characters sit down and talk it out. So little communication… they just needed to be honest and try believing it each other for once– especially since neither of them deceived the other throughout the course of the story. There weren’t really grounds for assuming they were betraying their love interest now.

The romance was very clean, which I appreciated. The descriptions of the fire victims and survivors were hard to read about, so I would definitely recommend caution if you’re sensitive to that in stories. Otherwise, I felt it was very clean, and I was pleased with the overall cleanliness of this book.

In summary, I enjoyed this book, but it wasn’t a new favorite. I would be interested in reading future books by this author, but I don’t think I’ll be picking this one up again. However, there were definitely parts that made me smile, and I learned a lot about this time period and the journalism side of things, which was very enjoyable.

EMOJI REVIEW!

• 🕰 historical time period
• 📰 journalism and newspapers
• 🎭 disguises and multiple identities
• 🚒 firefighters
• 📖 lots of historical research!!!

Thank you all so much for reading this post! I hope it helped you decide if this book would be a good fit for you.