Reviewed by Sandra Merville Hart

Harbor of Spies, Book 1

1773, Boston

Patience Abbott leaves England with her brother at their father’s urging after their mother’s death. The siblings board a ship to Boston to reunite with their father, whose job as a sailor had kept him from his wife and children for months and even years at a time. Patience learns the shocking news that her father has remarried. She and Will now have a stepmother and stepsister. Patience wonders if it’s possible to be close to her father again.

Blacksmith Josiah Wagner watches as the Eleanor pulls into the harbor with a cargo of tea. He has no family, yet his active, peaceful membership in the Sons of Liberty for the past four years has given him a greater purpose. He and the other patriots aren’t happy to see another boatload of tea, but meeting Patience searching for someone at the docks is a pleasant surprise. Her lost look reminds him of his arrival in Boston at the age of eleven, an orphan. He shows her the kindness no one showed him, something that impacts both of them.

Her brother soon decides to support the patriots’ cause while Patience struggles to understand all that is happening. Her loyalist father runs a shop that sells tea shipped from England. She believes Josiah sides with her brother. The man her father wants her to marry, Edward Cunningham, shares his views. Who is right?

Both the hero and heroine have suffered significant losses, which give them a deep yearning for family and belonging. I was drawn into their struggles and the gentle romance unfolding, and the story grew to become a page-turner for me.

The author does an excellent job of showing the escalating tensions that divided families and neighbors even before the American Revolutionary War. Readers learn a bit of history as a natural part of the story.

Recommended for readers who enjoy novels set in colonial times and for those who enjoy inspirational historical romances.

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