Rutabaga's Reads 2025: Part 18

Where there’s a YA fiction compilation, so there will be a Christian/inspirational fiction compilation close behind. Here is the third Christian/inspirational fiction post of 2025.

An Honorable Deception (Nov. 19, 2024) by Roseanna M. White.

<This is the third novel in a series.>

The leader of the Imposters (a private investigative firm that caters to the aristocracy), Lord Yates Fairfax, risks being recognized when his newest client, the beautiful Lady Alethia Barremore, is shot in the church they’ve met in. Lady Alethia is looking for her former nanny (or ayah), Samira, who’s gone missing. Their investigation digs up a truth far more sinister and dangerous than any of them imagined. But maybe Alethia isn’t truly surprised, given the terrifying truth that’s haunted her since she was a little girl being hidden in a locked wardrobe for her safety by her ayah.

            She may have spent years incredibly ill (scarlet fever), but Lady Lavinia Hemming highly suspects that her longtime friends and neighbors, siblings Yates and Lady Marigold Livingstone (née Fairfax), have more going on than meets the eye. When she discovers that they are the esteemed Imposters, she invites herself into the firm. Her own family’s secret continues to weigh on her, and she needs the distraction of an investigation. She wants to be useful and maybe, just maybe, she wants to let herself love Yates. But has Yates moved on from his childhood crush on Lavinia?

            In this final novel in The Imposters series, the Imposters dive into the dark side of society, where it’s obvious that titles don’t equate to noble thoughts and actions. Investigating those that they see in society is a balancing act, and despite the Edwardian-era setting, the struggle with finances is real in any timeline with characters that would be awesome to have as friends and neighbors in real life. The plot matter is not an easy topic, but it makes for a compelling story with a propulsive plot. White writes with the ease of a talented, seasoned writer, and I look forward to reading more of her stories.

            P.S. I was thrilled with the connections to the Shadows Over England and The Codebreakers series, along with allusion to “The Lost Heiress.” I love story crossovers!

            Book 1: A Beautiful Disguise

            Book 2: A Noble Scheme

Serial Burn (Jan. 21, 2025) by Lynette Eason.

<This is the third novel in a series.>

Almost 20 years have passed since Jesslyn McCormick was robbed of her family in a fire when she was only seven years old. As a fire marshal in Lake City, North Carolina (fictional), she’s dedicated her career to investigating fires. Now she’s examining one at her own church. Old feelings are dredged up and planted evidence on-scene provides new clues. There’s been an attempted abduction and attempts on her life. She recently made a passionate and public statement about never giving up on finding her family’s killer. It could be that the killer has been in the area this entire time. FBI Special Agent Nathan Carlisle is called in to work with local law enforcement. He also has a past that involves a fatal fire, which he has no interest in rehashing. Searching for the arsonist is a great distraction, but protecting Jesslyn is likewise a distraction. The spark between them is strong enough to set their lives ablaze, but someone else is setting things alight in real time.

            The penultimate story in the Lake City Heroes series is an inferno of action, danger, investigation and quick-thinking soothed by faith, found family and camaraderie. It’s a Christian romantic suspense novel that grabs hold of you in a vice-like grip, snatching your attention as you race the characters to figure out who the arsonist is before they do. Guilt is a supporting theme of one of the supporting characters and his shining scene is gripping and emotional. From start to finish, Eason takes readers on a thrill ride. One aims for a reckoning; the other’s goal is retribution.

            Book One: Double Take

            Book Two: Target Acquired

Two Seconds Too Late (Apr. 29, 2025) by Dani Pettrey.

<This is the second novel in a series.>

A woman has vanished from a couples’ retreat at a swanky, luxury resort in northern New Mexico. Skip tracer Riley MacLeod and private investigator Greyson Chadwick pose as a couple to seek out clues to the missing woman’s location. Expressive Wellness Retreat and Spa is luxurious and comes with a luxurious price tag. The woman, Kelly Frazier, is on the run and being hunted. What should be a cut-and-dried tracking case takes a sharp turn when Riley becomes the hunted, too. Her home is ransacked, she finds herself stalked, and she and Greyson are somehow tracked to the retreat. The Kelly that Riley thought she knew isn’t the only side of Kelly. Kelly’s desperate for justice, but taking it into her own hands may end her life if Riley and Greyson can’t find her. As the pair work together, their mutual attraction ignites, but Greyson’s deep secrets prevent him from admitting his attraction. From a missing woman to hit men to a questionable retreat, survival is a fight. But so is love, when one’s found one’s soulmate.

            It’s hard to put Pettrey’s books down once I start them, but I do, because I’m one of those who reads multiple novels simultaneously (normally not more than three, but it’s been as many as seven). The second in Pettrey’s Jeopardy Falls series is high-octane and action-packed. The Christian romantic suspense novel barely lets readers get a breath in as the characters get their danger-filled spying on in this wholesome story. The writing is tight, and it gets the pulse pounding, even though you know the outcome will be good for the protagonists. It’s another victory for the author and her faithful characters and a victory; therefore, for her readers.

            Book One: One Wrong Move