a lady unrivaled by roseanna m. white

Ella Myerston didn't mean to take the earrings with her. Honest, she didn't. She just forgot. Or maybe she lost them, like she does with almost anything else entrusted to her care.

No matter. It was high time her brother involved her in this Fire Eyes business anyway. After all, she's not a child.

But the lord after the Fire Eyes has already been thwarted twice. His sister has been broken. His best friend has been killed. All in the name of the diamonds now swimming in the abyss of Ella's jewelry box.

Either way, it ends here.

The conclusion to the Ladies of the Manor trilogy feels like a return. This book matches more of the "Roseanna White" style I'd come to know and love from her other series. The characters spring to life from the pages once again. Ella's optimism never failed to lift my spirits, no matter the bleak circumstances she stared down. Her and Lord Cayton's banter never failed to make me smile. And Ella's unfailing trust in God never failed to inspire me.

One of the things I love about Roseanna White is how she takes a sensitive look at the reality of depression. She did it in On Wings of Devotion and she does it again here. She offers more than just an annoying, sniveling, whiny character. She gives us a real character, with real struggles. She makes us understand, to go deeper.

There were a few parts that were a bit murky and confusing. The climax builds to a big showdown between basically every character I came to love and the villain. I won't tell you how it ends, but suffice it to say, a gun is fired. The paragraphs describing that make it unclear who shot it. This issue is explained only a chapter later, but it still puzzled me and took a little bit away from the climax.

And by a little bit, I mean the teeniest bit possible. Ella truly is a lady unrivaled. And this was an unrivaled finale to the Ladies of the Manor trilogy and the saga of the Fire Eyes diamonds.