August 1815. The war with France is officially over, Napoleon’s an exile on St Helena, but Europe is still a very dangerous place to be.
Kidnapped and held for ransom at nineteen, ducal heir William Ravenwood knows the only person he can rely on is himself. Now part of a spy ring that includes his friends Nicolas and Richard Hampden, he’s the smuggler known as The Raven, a ruthless agent who specializes in rescuing hostages and prisoners of war from captivity.
Raven longs to discover the fate of his colleague, Christopher ‘Kit’ Carlisle, who’s been missing, presumed dead, for over two years. He’s also equally determined to stay away from the one thing he knows is dangerous to his health – the bane of his life, his best friends’ infuriating and provocative little sister, Heloise.
Heloise is a brilliant code breaker, one of the English government’s most valuable assets. She’s also loved Raven for years, but considering that he rejected her at sixteen, before her face was scarred rescuing her brother from an icy river, she’s certain he doesn’t want her now, despite his outrageous flirting.
But when Heloise decodes a message that proves Kit is alive and a prisoner in Spain, Raven realizes she’s in grave danger. With French agents determined to silence her, he’ll do whatever it takes to keep her safe – even if that means taking her to Spain with him as an unwilling hostage.
As they face French deserters and Spanish freedom fighters, Raven and Heloise try to ignore the simmering attraction that’s been building between them for eight long years. The differences between them are striking but they’ve always had a strange underlying bond. Heloise might be scarred outwardly, but Raven’s wounds are all on the inside. He knows he’s not worthy of her love—a shadowed Hades pining for sun-kissed Persephone—but he’s not above showing her passion for the short time they’re together.
A master at decoding complex messages, Heloise finds Raven frustratingly hard to read, but as their lives hang in the balance she’s determined to unravel his secrets and unlock his dark, elusive heart…
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I received this book from Netgalley for an honest review.
SO I love a good Historical but this was a bit different then I had ever read. Most historical books are the wallflowers falling in love with the Rakeshell of a man. This book was so much more than those. This is about spies..OH what fun!!
Now this is the 2nd book in a series and I did not read it but to be honest I never felt like I missed anything or felt left outta the loop on any of the drama of the plot or characters.
So this book is about Heloise and Ravenwood. They are both working for the same goals annnd totally hot for each other. However, due to the fact she is Ravenwood’s besties sister there is the whole hands off rule….Now we learn through the book that at one point there were hearts laid out but rejection occurred. Now a lot has happened to Heloise that makes her hide her feeling for Ravenwood and he too has had a lot happen for him . Now that he has to help protect her he can’t seem to hid his heart from the woman who stole his heart years ago….wiggle eye brows!!
I really enjoyed the book but at ties got a little over the whole “its not you its me” kinda drama but I would totally read another book by this author in the future.
Kate Bateman (writing as K. C. Bateman) wrote her first historical romance in response to a $1 bet with her husband who rashly claimed she’d ‘never finish the thing.’ She gleefully proved him wrong with an historical set in the Italian Renaissance. Now writing for Random House Loveswept, her latest ‘Secrets and Spies’ Regency-era trilogy features her trademark feisty, intelligent heroines, wickedly inappropriate banter, and heroes you want to alternately strangle and kiss—all mixed up in the intrigue and turmoil of the Napoleonic wars.
When not traveling to exotic locations ‘for research,’ Kate leads a double life as a fine art appraiser and on-screen antiques expert for several TV shows in the UK, each of which has up to 2.5 million viewers. She splits her time between Illinois and her native England and writes despite three inexhaustible children and a husband who has flatly refused to read any of her books ‘unless she hits the NY Times Bestseller list.’ It is – naturally – her fervent desire to force the semi-illiterate, number-loving cynic to do so. He still owes her that dollar.
Kate loves to hear from readers and writers alike. Contact her on Twitter @katebateman, Facebook, and even via her website at www.kcbateman.com
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