This Earl of Mine by Kate Bateman

From the publisher: Introducing the Bow Street Bachelors—men who work undercover for London’s first official police force—and the women they serve to protect. . .and wed?

An enjoyable first in a historical romance series from Kate Bateman. The initial premise is a bit far-fetched – a rich heiress chooses to wed a prisoner to escape from her greedy lecherous cousin – but the relationship between beautiful and feisty Georgiana and gorgeous undercover ex-soldier Benedict is sweet and satisfying. I also liked the humor in the side characters of Georgiana’s sister and her besotted poet suitor.

One thing I did not like was the spoiler title. Benedict is not an earl until the last chapter (I don’t consider that a spoiler from me since it is in the title!). He is the second son of an earl and brother to the impoverished current earl, and I spent the whole book wondering if his brother was going to die so he could become earl. There surely were dozens of alternate titles that could have been used. Not sure why publishers think every historical romance must have earl, duke, viscount, or marquess in the title.

I read an advance reader copy of This Earl of Mine. It will be published in late October and will be available at the Galesburg Public Library.

The Soul of Discretion by Susan Hill

I love a good British police procedural. That's why I've been reading Susan Hill's Simon Serrailler mysteries when they've arrived at the library as advance reader copies. I've only read three - 6, 7, and 8 in the series. After reading 7, I thought I'd stop because I had a hard time finishing 7. I felt I was missing a lot of background information since I hadn't been with the series since the start. Still, I think Susan Hill is a great writer, so I picked up 8, The Soul of Discretion, all the same.

Maybe I've now read enough of the series to be able to keep the continuing characters straight. Or maybe in this book, the focus is much more on Serrailler and so whatever I didn't know about the other characters didn't bother me as much. In any event, I thought this was a terrific read.

Serrailler goes undercover to try to crack a pedophile ring. A really bad pedophile ring. Things take an unexpected turn and he ends up on the run with the man he's trying to get secrets out of. Hill excels at building tension, and she did it very well here. I'm not even that fond of Simon Serrailler and I was so worried about him I had a hard time getting through some of the narration. In fact, I legitimately (click for spoiler)

wondered if Hill was going to kill Serrailler and end the series.

Although the narrative isn't graphic, the subject matter and level of violence involved is. Some of the plot points were far-fetched, and a secondary plot thread was not of that much interest to me. But this was a very entertaining book for me. I definitely recommend it for fans of the series, and it might even be possible to step into the series at this point for someone new.

I really need to read the first book in the series. The Soul of Discretion will be published in January 2015. The Galesburg Public Library owns a number of books in the Simon Serrailler series. They can be found in adult Fiction, in the audiobook section, and online as ebooks.