Brook Eden always believed that she was the illigitimate daughter of the prince of Monaco and a opera star. She is beloved by her granpere, the king of Monaco, but when her "mere" is about to die, she tells Brook that she wasn't really her mother. She gives Brook some letters from her birth mother to her birth father, some of which contain a British coat of arms. Brook's best friend, Justin, (himself heir to an English dukedom) takes the coat of arms to England and discovers Brook's real identity. As Brook travels to a new land to find her real family and to discover what really happened to her mother, she also must confront her changing feelings about Justin, and his changing feelings toward her.
I read Ms White's book, An Hour Unspent, and enjoyed it, so I decided to try something else from her. This is the first in a set of British Christian Historical novels. This one was a bit more heavy handed with the religious refrences than the first one I read, and the pacing was maybe a bit slow, but I still enjoyed it. I listened to it in recording and the reader does a great job switching between Brook's French and everyone else's English accents. Brook is an endearingly spunky woman and her relationship with Justin is realistically complex. The mystery of how Brook's mother was killed is pretty well crafted but felt a little "tacked on" to the real story, which is about Brook accepting her new life and family, while dealing with her maturing feelings for her childhood friend. The author could have left it out completely, and still had a good book. Still, White is firmly on my list of authors I will probably read more of in the future. (2015, 439 p.)
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