Category: Elizabethan Era (1558-1603)

The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the History of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history.
Preceded by: Tudor period
Followed by: Jacobean era
Monarch: Elizabeth I

Mistress Spy by Pamela Mingle #BlogTour, #Giveaway

On By TracyIn Blog Tour, Contests/Giveaways, Elizabethan Era (1558-1603), Tracy's Reviews2 Comments

Meet the Author:

Pamela Mingle is a former teacher and librarian who was fortunate enough to choose writing as a third career. Or maybe it chose her. 🙂 She loves to create romantic tales that play out against historical events and always includes some humor in her books.

Pam and her husband enjoy walking in the UK–even though she’s done her share of whining on those fifteen-mile days. The walking trips have been an ideal way to discover new settings for her books.

Pam loves to hear from readers. Go to her website, http://www.pammingle.com/ to sign up for her newsletter. Subscribers learn first about giveaways and exclusive-to-subscriber content. You can also contact her via her website.

Connect: Site | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

About the Book:

A determined sister . . .
Madeleine Vernon’s dreams should be filled with elegant gowns and marriageable men. Instead, she dreams of avenging her brother’s death. But when she’s captured by the queen’s men, she’s forced to become a spy by her mysterious yet undeniably attractive captor.
A rakish spy . . .
After years of working for his father in Queen Elizabeth’s service, Nicholas Ryder is close to going his own way. But now he’s got a feisty beauty he must protect or risk her execution as a traitor to the crown. She’s a distraction he can’t afford, but he also can’t stop thinking about her.
A dangerous lie . . .
It is Nicholas’s job to foil plots against Elizabeth, and he sends Maddy into a household of suspected traitors to garner what information she can. As the line between captor and prisoner blurs, deceit, betrayal, and desire become a perilous mix. Ultimately, Nicholas must decide whether duty to the queen is more important than winning Maddy’s heart.
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iBooks | Kobo

Add to Goodreads

Giveaway:

  • $15 Amazon Gift Card!

th

 

Tracy’s Review:

Mistress SpyMistress Spy by Pamela Mingle

Tracy’s rating: 3 of 5 stars

Madeleine “Maddy” Vernon is taken prisoner during a failed rebellion attempt. Maddy joined the rebellion to avenge her brother Robert’s death, he had been part of the previous uprising and was hanged as a traitor. While imprisoned, Maddy is brought before Nicholas Ryder.

Nicholas needs a spy, he offers Maddy a full pardon in exchange for her cooperation. She will be placed in service to Lady Jane Darce, a suspected sympathizer to Queen Mary of Scotland. Nicholas wants Maddy to find out if Lady Darce or her step-son have any plans on aiding Queen Mary.

Maddy has no desire to be a spy, but she has even less desire to hang. She agrees to work with Nicholas, but reminds herself that despite her attraction to him, Nicholas is not her friend.

The intrigue starts almost as soon as she arrives, a man from her past is there using a false name, but she doesn’t have a chance to tell Nicholas. Later she decides to keep that information to herself. She settles into a routine with Lady Darce and is able to glean a little information.

When she sees Nicholas again, she meets his ward/nephew Daniel. She is taken with the boy and admires Nicholas for his care of his nephew, who stopped speaking after his father’s death. She wonders if she misjudged Nicholas. She passes on some of what she has learned, but doesn’t tell him everything. Nicholas is fighting his attraction to her and when he learns that her brother is not dead and the Queen has pardoned her, he keeps that to himself – afraid she will leave if she learns the truth.

With danger, secrets, murder and intrigue dogging their every step, is it possible for them to find love?

I thought this book was well written, but I found it to be mediocre and I didn’t care for Maddy. I never understood her motivation for keeping information from Nicholas and thought the story lagged a bit in the middle. The love scenes where warm, but I honestly never “felt” the love between them, it was almost as if the author was writing a spy novel and halfway through remembered that it was supposed to be a romance and threw in the required elements. I had a hard time deciding how to rate this book and settled for 3 stars because as an intrigue novel, I would rate this 4 stars, but I would be hard pressed to give it more than 2 stars as a romance.

*I am voluntarily leaving a review for an eARC that was provided to me by NetGalley and the publisher*

 

Highland Wrath by Madeline Martin

On By BarbaraIn Barb's Reviews, Elizabethan Era (1558-1603), Top Pick - Highly Recommended, Yearly FavoritesLeave a comment

Highland Wrath (The Mercenary Maidens, #3)Highland Wrath by Madeline Martin

Barbara’s rating: 5 of 5 stars

Series: Mercenary Maidens #3
Publication Date: 7/17/18

Oh! Be still my heart. This book was mesmerizing, poignant, sweet, fulfilling, and the absolute perfect ending to the series. My heart beat faster and faster as Sylvi and Ian along with Percy, Isobel, My Lady and Liv draw nearer and nearer to the mercenaries who murdered Sylvi’s family. Can six stand against dozens? There is non-stop action, an exceptional storyline, a mystery that keeps you guessing right up until the end, wonderful, lovable and relatable characters and I absolutely could not put it down once I read the first word.

Sylvi has intrigued me since the first book in the series. I knew she had an epic tale to tell and I was certainly correct in that. She’s strong, intelligent and determined to avenge the deaths of her entire family. Her family was ruthlessly murdered when she was only eight years old – she was the only one to have survived having her throat cut. She closed down all of her feelings except her desire for revenge and she trained her body to be a killing machine. She had followed and copied the moves of someone she referred to as My Lady until the lady finally noticed her and agreed to teach her. It is seventeen years later and Sylvie is now at her peak – all she has to do is find them. All she knows is that the leader has only half of his left ear.

To keep herself and the other ladies afloat, Sylvi occasionally accepts jobs – even sometimes taking the life of someone else. She has just such a job now. She is to find and kill Ian Campbell and take his body to the people who want him dead. However, Ian isn’t quite as easy to kill as she thought – and when she hears what he has to say while he’s guessing who paid her to kill him – well, she doesn’t want him dead any longer. Together they come up with a plot to make the villains think Ian is dead so Sylvi can follow them when they take his body back to their leader.

Ian Campbell is the oldest son of Laird Campbell, but he’s renounced his position as heir because he has no desire to be the kind of man his father is. His brother Kyle can have the job. Laird Campbell is a harsh laird and rules with a firm hand. When Ian’s father committed an act Ian couldn’t live with, Ian left home and has drifted aimlessly in the year since then. He even spent a few months with a band of mercenaries.

Ian is instantly intrigued and attracted to the lovely lass who has just tried to murder him in his sleep. Yet, somehow, for some reason, he trusts her with his life. So, when she suggests an outrageous plan, he goes along with it.

Once Sylvi gets her revenge, it doesn’t feel quite so sweet. Something is missing and she discovers yet another mystery she has to solve – this was all even more tragic than she originally thought.

Be prepared for a wild ride of revenge, love, betrayal and multiple HEA’s in this tightly plotted, perfectly executed ending to a wonderful series. I highly recommend it. You can read it as a stand-alone, but goodness I don’t know why you’d want to – the first two books in the series are wonderful too!

I almost forgot to mention — there is a to-die-for epilogue. I absolutely think all books need an epilogue, but this one sets the example of what all of the others should be like. All I can say is – Well Done Ms. Martin!

Please check out my reviews at:
Blog: https://flippinpages.blog/
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/flippinpages…
Twitter: https://twitter.com/FlippinPagesRev
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BarbBookReview

“I requested and received this e-book at no cost to me and volunteered to read it; my review is my honest opinion and given without any influence by the author or publisher.”