Counterfeit Love by Crystal Caudill (Book Review and GIVEAWAY)

 

Theresa Plane is an artist that is using her skills to make money to try to pay off her Grandfather’s debts. She loves her grandfather for raising her, but he seems to have gotten into trouble with nefarious men tracking him down to pay for his debts.   Theresa has a dashing fiancé Edward Graystone, but when she runs in with her former fiancé, Broderick Cosgrove, sparks fly.  Broderick is working as an undercover agent for the Secret Service to find the leader of a counterfeiting ring.  When this investigation leads him to Theresa’s door, the two have to form a partnership to solve this mystery.

I love historical mysteries, and this had a lot of intriguing elements.  I loved the gilded age setting, secret service, and counterfeit angles.  I also enjoyed that this is a clean read with light Christian elements to the story.  One of my favorite romance tropes is second chance love, so you know what couple of the love triangle I was rooting for in this story.  I am a Water Resources Engineer that has worked on flood management projects in the past and I found it intriguing that the backdrop of this story was the great Cincinnati flood of 1884.  I loved the details!

The only downside of this book to me is that it did take me a bit to get into the story.  The start of it made me feel that I should know the backstory of what had happened to these characters, but it was the first book in the series.

Overall, Counterfeit Love is a great new Christian historical mystery novel!

Book Source: A Review Copy from Kregel Publishing as part of the Audra Jennings PR Book Tour.  Thank-you! I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

About the book:

Can this undercover agent save the woman he loves—or is her heart as counterfeit as the money he’s been sent to track down?

After all that Grandfather has sacrificed to raise her, Theresa Plane owes it to him to save the family name--and that means clearing their debt with creditors before she marries Edward Greystone. But when one of the creditors’ threats leads her to stumble across a midnight meeting, she discovers that the money he owes isn’t all Grandfather was hiding. And the secrets he kept have now trapped Theresa in a life-threatening fight for her home--and the truth.

After months of undercover work, Secret Service operative Broderick Cosgrove is finally about to uncover the identity of the leader of a notorious counterfeiting ring. That moment of triumph turns to horror, however, when he finds undeniable proof that his former fiancé is connected. Can he really believe the woman he loved is a willing participant? Protecting Theresa and proving her innocence may destroy his career--but that’s better than failing her twice in one lifetime.

They must form a partnership, tentative though it is. But there’s no question they’re both still keeping secrets--and that lack of trust, along with the dangerous criminals out for their blood, threatens their hearts, their faith, and their very survival.

Combining rich history, danger, suspense, and romance, Crystal Caudill’s debut novel launches this new historical series with a bang. Fans of Elizabeth Camden, Michelle Griep, and Joanna Davidson Politano will be thrilled to find another author to follow!

 To read an excerpt of Counterfeit Love click here.

About the author

Crystal Caudill is the author of “dangerously good historical romance,” with her work garnering awards from Romance Writers of America and ACFW. Counterfeit Love is her debut published novel.

Caudill says that reading and writing are part of her soul and have been since she first held a crayon. While she considered writing to be an escape from challenges and struggles and a way to keep her sanity, Caudill would come to recognize that God used it as a teaching tool. “The stories came through my fingertips, but they were marked with His fingerprints,” she shares.

As she delved into history and crafted her own stories of hope through danger, Caudill would answer the call to pursue writing as a career after her first writer’s conference. “My stories are still filled with danger, struggle, and history, but they are also permeated with the hope and love of Christ. I hope they are dangerously good. Good for the heart and for the soul.”

She is a stay-at-home mom and caregiver, and when she isn’t writing, Caudill can be found playing board games with her family, drinking hot tea, or reading other great books at her home outside Cincinnati, Ohio.

 Find out more at crystalcaudill.com or find her on Facebook (@crystalcaudillauthor) and Instagram (@crystalcaudillauthor). You can also join fellow readers in Crystal Caudill’s Reading Friends group on Facebook.

a Rafflecopter giveaway