"A Portrait of Loyalty" by Roseanna M. White

[reviewsbyerin]

The Codebreakers series wraps up here, after following Margot the math whiz in The Number of Love and Philip the disgraced pilot in On Wings of Devotion. Now our heroine is Lily, a young photography expert helping alter shots to leak to the enemy. Her father also works at the Old Admiralty Building, but Lily's mother has strict views against propaganda, so Lily has kept her official work a secret, covered up by her volunteer nursing shifts at Charing Cross Hospital.

Zivon Marin escaped war-torn Russia after losing his family and fiancee. A train wreck has separated him from his brother, his last living relative, and he wonders if he'll ever see Evgeni alive again. Despite their differing political beliefs, he longs for the love and connection they'd always shared. He has no regrets defecting to help the British, not after everything the Bolsheviks have taken from him.

Lily likes the new man around the office, but she sees the pain and scars he keeps buried deep inside. Can she help him see the beauty in life once more?

The final days of WWI play out across the pages, including the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. I hadn't expected that to be part of the story, so it was quite a surprise, especially given all that has happened in our world here in 2020. We all understand about that a little more now than we would have if this book had released last year.

Overall, another fantastic novel from Roseanna M. White! I would recommend this for all fans of historical fiction.

I received my copy of the book from the publisher. All thoughts in this review are my own.