The Raven Saint (Charles Towne Belles)
by Marylu Tyndall
The youngest Westcott daughter, Grace, is about to find out a lot about life. She is betrayed and kidnapped by Captain Rafe Dubois, bound to be given to a Spanish don as vengeance for something her father, the Admiral did. Grace instantly turns to prayer and places her life in God's hands only to have him seem to do nothing.
I disliked Grace in a major way at the beginning of this book. She was everything I disliked about preachy Christians that think they are better than everyone else. Thankfully, Rafe was there to somehow show her the error of her ways.
This was quite a complex plot line, with many spins and twists to keep the action going. Rafe comes from a dubious past that is catching up to him, threatening not only him, but Grace, whom he has learned to hold dear. With all these interesting people roaming the pages, I found my favorite to be the little ship cat, Spyglass.
3/5
The Blue Enchantress (Charles Towne Belles)
by Marylu Tyndall
We return to the coast of Charles Towne shortly after Faith is pardoned for piracy and wed to her Captain Waite only to discover that the middle Westcott sister, Hope, has stowed away on a boat for England to be with her lover, Lord Falkland. To her surprise the Lord Falkland has a Mrs. Falkland and Hope is set off at the next port to be sold on the auction block into slavery. An acquaintance from home, Mr. Mason, comes to her rescue, giving half of what he owns to buy her and take her back to her home.
This sets the stage for a trip through a hurricane, a ship wreck, and pirates with quite an odd moral code. While I found Hope to be a spoiled flirtatious brat, there was something endearing and vulnerable about her. Mr. Mason on the other hand is a self-righteous snot, and I didn't particularly care for him until Hope somehow worked her magic.
Once again, Tyndall has introduced not only memorable main characters, but a group of side characters that I fell in love with as well. The story was engaging and entertaining - a great follow up to The Red Siren. The story is once again a Christian tale, but avoids being overly preachy and just becomes another aspect of the story.
4/5
The Red Siren: Charles Towne Belle Series, Book 1 (Truly Yours Romance Series #29)
by Marylu Tyndall
What would you do if you were a girl in colonial America faced with a tough choice? The choice between allowing your father to give you away in marriage to horrible men, or find a way to support yourself. Today that choice would be easy, but in Faith Westcott's time, her options seemed limited. She had to find a way to save not only herself, but her two sisters from what she saw as the horrible fate of marriages that they had no say in. Her choice to try and raise money is an interesting one. She turns to piracy...with the stable hand as her first mate and loud mouth parrot along for the ride.
Few people believe the tales of the fiery red haired captain, the temptress that lures ships to their doom, know only as the Red Siren. But Lt. Dajon Waite has had a run in with her in the past, where she took everything from him, and now he eagerly looks forward to laying his trap to capture her.
Faith beats Dajon at every turn. On the sea and on the land, she leads him in a merry chase that somehow ends up turning into a romance. But what will happen if he ever finds out that she slips to the seas at night to steal from the heavy merchant ships as they come into port?
3.5/5
