The Solitary Envoy by T.Davis and Isabella Bunn

publisher: Bethany House

rating: **1/2

Director Peter Weir ( Master and Commander, Gallipoli, Dead Poet’s Society ) once said in an interview that true booklovers guage travel time by a question of a: “how many book trip is this?”

I tried to take that into consideration when packing for my recent vacation in beautiful, breathtaking Nova Scotia: a part of Canada I love to return to again and again.

Unfortunately, I did not bring enough: what with plane trips and reading before bed or in those nice ,wily hours by the ocean with a glass of something frosty, I ran out in the last half of my trip.

I found an excellent used bookstore on Cape Breton Island and purchased The Solitary Envoy. Knowing that it was ( aptly) a follow up from the Song of Acadia series: the former Acadia being very near the region I was in.

I really enjoyed the book. I liked that our heroine, Erica Langston, knew all about calculating and figures. Here was a woman with math skills and a sound mind who could use her God-given gift to aid her family after a bad investment went awry in revolutionary war-time America .

Erica travels to Britain to reclaim lost funds and falls into the company of the Dissenters: a moralistic group impassioned by change---especially on the slave trade front.

Here, she develops a growing attraction to Gareth Powers: a former redcoat who now uses his pen to write incendiary missives of injustice in his beloved country.

Erica is no simpering woman: she can handle the truth as well as the next and one specifically potent moment as her witnessing a violent riot in Manchester . Erica is able to relay the events in the same calculating way she employs when jotting down account books.

Bunn’s inclusion of the heroic figure of William Wilberforce: the short and somewhat awkward looking man called the nightingale of Parliament for his ethereal oratory skills is a welcome one.

This was a great book to read on vacation. It was an unplanned and unexpected read and sometimes those are the nicest and most surprising.