Heart's Safe Passage by Laurie Alice Eakes

Last year I was captivated by Lady in the Mist, the first book in Laurie Alice Eakes’ series The Midwives. Her words flowed so easily into an entrancing story. I finished the book satisfied and hoping the second book would be about one of the minor characters that intrigued me: Phoebe Lee. 

And guess what? It was! 

Heart’s Safe Passage did not disappoint. You’d not think a story about a midwife could take place mostly on board a ship— ahem, a brig— on the water between the US and England during the War of 1812. And yet Laurie Alice takes us captive there, along with Phoebe Lee and her sister-in-law Belinda. Add in a Scottish captain with a past and a vendetta and we are in for a wild ride! 

What I love about all of Laurie Alice’s books, be they American or British set, is that each one is full of adventure. These are stories where small events have big consequences, stories that keep your heart pounding as you turn each page. And I do love that she brings in English and Scottish heroes even in her “American” books. :)

If you enjoy a good love story with a heavy dose of intrigue and adventure, check out Heart’s Safe Passage and Lady in the Mist. I hope you relish them as much as I have. 

A Necessary Deception by Laurie Alice Eakes

One summer, several years ago, we went on a library spree. We didn’t go to the small library in our little suburb/town. Instead, we went to the one a little bit larger, in the town that butted up against ours. An older, larger town. 

What I loved about its library was the vast collection of older books. Not old as in collectables, but old as in really good reads that you sometimes don’t run across anymore because space in libraries made way for newer titles. 

That summer I discovered a new-to-me author: Patricia Veryan. She wrote novels set in England but they weren’t the drawing room dramas of Jane Austen, though they covered much of the same time period. No, these stories had adventure and intrigue. More along the Scarlet Pimpernel lines. I devoured them--somewhere around 15 or so--that summer. 

Fast forward. In one of my online historical writer groups, I became friends with Laurie Alice Eakes. I remember getting excited when she mentioned Patricia Veryan in one of her posts. And when she told me she’d been contracted for a series of Veryan-esque Regency novels, I was so excited I could hardly stand it!

I received my copy of A Necessary Deception last week and it did not disappoint! Lady Lydia Gale, a widow, is determined to help her sisters do what she could not--make a happy marriage. But nothing turns out as Lydia expects. She is unwillingly drawn into a world of spies and national security in order to save her family from scandal but when two different men present themselves as her contact, she doesn’t know who to trust. A Necessary Deception is an adventure, a love story, and a spy story all rolled into one. And with an important spiritual thread to hold it all together!

Not only did I thoroughly enjoy this book, it left me eagerly anticipating the other two books, which will focus on Lydia’s sisters Cassandra and Honore. I just wish I didn’t have to wait so long to read them!