The Traitor’s Club: Ford by Laura Landon
Release Date: 05/30/17
Series: The Traitor’s Club, #1
Tracy’s rating: 4 of 5 stars
Lady Calinda aka Callie was burned years ago by her betrothed and has decided that men cannot be trusted and wants no part of marriage. She is content to help her grandfather run the Crown’s shipping company.
Captain Ford Remington is one of the “Queen’s Scoundrels”, he has returned from the war and is at loose ends, he feels a bit of survivor’s guilt and desperately wishes there was something he could do for all the wound/crippled soldiers that were not as fortunate as he and his friends were. His chance arises when the Queen requests his assistance with the Crown’s Shipping Company. Profits have been declining for years and she wants Ford to go undercover and find out why. His reward will be half interest in the company. The money will enable Ford to help those soldiers, so while he has no desire to spy again, he can’t turn away this opportunity.
Ford meets Callie at a ball and befriends her – he feels badly about deceiving her, but he has a mission and until he learns more, she is a suspect. Callie is shocked at her reaction to Ford, she hasn’t had any interest in a man since her ill fated betrothal. Even though she tries to keep Ford at a distance, she feels a connection to him and begins to share her worries about the company with him.
As they work together to figure out who is stealing from the company and how, they fall in love. Ford can never seem to find the right time to tell Callie about his mission and knows the longer he waits, the harder it will be for her to forgive him.
Things come to a head and when Callie finds out the truth, she shuts him out. She refuses to talk to him, listen to him or read his letters. Up until this point, I though this was a 5 star read – but the way she acted turned me off and I had a hard time liking her after that. She came across as a hypocrite since she was also keeping secrets from her family and especially from her grandfather. She assumed the worst about Ford and steadfastly refused to believe she might be mistaken.
She does redeem herself (sort of) but for me, it was too little, too late.
The book is well written, interesting, moves at a steady pace, has very mild love scenes (kissing only), great secondary characters and a decent mystery. I loved Ford, from the first page to the last and I look forward to reading the other “traitors” stories.
*I am voluntarily leaving a review for an eARC that was provided to me by NetGalley and the publisher*
