Harbinger of Books

Winter Makepeace is a hard man, while he loves his sisters and is very happy for them he is also quite isolated. He lives with this idea that he has to hold himself in rigid control because he believes that is how he should be and as his father would want him to be. The other reason is that Winter is living a double life on as the head and manager of a orphans home and the other as the Ghost of St. Giles and Winter is fine with that. Until the one of the ladies of the home stars to believe that Winter may not be the best head for the home and plan to replace him. Lady Isabel is chosen to help tutor Winter in social graces ironically in the same period Lady Isabel also comes face to face with the Ghost. Between Winter and Isabel’s battle of the wills they soon see beyond the mask that they each wear, and in the meantime someone is stealing and hurting children.

After watching Winter in all of the other books I have been looking forward to watching him break his stone cold hold on everything. I was hoping he could have a strong woman who wanted him and this story delivered just that. I also liked Lady Isabel and she is a great heroine, it was interesting to get a sense of how much of herself that she kept suppressed. Especially around Christopher and I just loved how that worked out!The story moves smoothly and really fast. The child labor plot also kept things interesting.

My only real complaint well there is two and the first is I wish his sisters would have take a more active role in the book. The other is I really did not understand why the ladies of the ..this that or other…orphanage cared about his social skills and furthermore why would a titled man be willing to take the job?? Even though that later did not make sense to me it did not distract me from the story.

4 ½ stars