A Name Unknown: A Book Review

I received a copy of this book from Bethany House Publishing in exchange for my honest review. 

Hello Friends! I'm excited to share another book review with you today. I'd love to come back soon and share all my summer reads with you. It's wonderful to have at least a little more time to read again. Hooray for kids getting "slightly" older.

Reading is one of those things that relaxes me, centers me, and gives me a bit of that "introvert" space I desire, space that's hard to come by with kiddos at home. 

A Name Unknown, by Roseanna White was right up my alley. It had a spy, a little bit of mystery, and pre-WWI England backdrop. This story left me really wanting to read more. 

Rosemary, an orphan and thief, learned early in life how to fend for herself on the streets of London. Over time, she's formed an unconventional family made up of other orphans. They've learned the skills of the streets, perfected gentile accents, and learned how to steal with the best of them. For them, stealing is survival. Stealing is the way they are able to keep a roof of sorts over their head and food on the table. One day, Rosemary is given a mysterious job: travel to the countryside, befriend a nobleman there, and find proof that he's a German traitor. Rosemary, who has never had a tremendous love of books, must now pretend that books are her profession, that organizing them is what she does for a living. She must play a part of a librarian, so completely different from her upbringing, and play it convincingly. If she does so, and proves Peter Holstein is a traitor to the Crown, she will make a enough money to truly provide for her family, to give the youngest ones schooling and a true chance at life. But what will she find as she starts to dig into the past? Who will she find?

At time, I found Rosemary's responses a little unbelievable. She's a street rat/thief at heart from London, so I'm not sure she would have responded as a lady quite as much as she did.  I couldn't really always understand her, which made some of her reactions confusing. The story also seemed to drag for me in spots. I'm not really sure why. Perhaps it had nothing to do with the story at all, and more with me being distracted by kids and summer and life :) 

 The romance part of it was gentle, not over done as I feel some Christian novels are. In some novels, I find myself rolling my eyes, because the scenes feel so over dramatic. I never felt that way in this book. The characters seemed like real people, the development of the romance seemed pretty realistic (well maybe a little rushed, but I still liked it!). 

In the end, I was left waiting for more. The downsides didn't really matter to me, in the end I was satisfied with the story.  I'm looking forward to reading more books in this series, which will focus on Rosemary's siblings, former thieves turned spies during WWI. I think they will all make for fun reads!

Thank you for joining me for this book review. If you know if books you think I should read, comment below! Also, be sure to find me on Instagram @megchaneywrites  There you'll find me latest reads and encouragement for the heart!