"An Hour Unspent" by Roseanna M. White.

TODAY is the 100th anniversary of the ending of World War I.  Or, the Great War, as they called it then.  Perfect time to review this book, as it takes place during WWI.  In fact, I tried to hold off on finishing this book until today, but the truth is, I finished it a couple days ago because I couldn't stop reading it.  However, I did manage to hold off on reviewing it until today so I could mark this very important day in a special way on my blog!

I would have finished it even faster if this book had come in at the library for me a little sooner.  And if, right after it came in, I hadn't gone to my parents' for a week and left it behind.  In fact, I started reading it almost two weeks after I got it from the library, and then it came due when I was only ten chapters in, and I couldn't renew it because other people had holds on it too.  What's a girl to do?

A girl is to know, ten chapters in, that she loves this book so much, she must own a copy of it, and order one from Amazon, and finish reading it once it arrives on her doorstep, obviously.  Hurrah for Prime shipping.

So.  This book focuses on Barclay Pearce, older "brother" of the women featured in A Name Unknown and A Song Unheard.  I kind of wish he'd been on the cover, but I guess the publishers wanted the books to be all matchy and feature only women or something.  And there IS a woman who's a major part of the book, but... but... Barclay is the center of it, and they should have put him on the cover, so there.

I'm not reviewing this very well.  So, basically, it's about former thief Barclay Pearce walking literally into the muddled life of Evelina Manning, an upper-middle-class London clockmaker's daughter who is reeling from a broken engagement.  Really, Barclay is there to help her father with an important gizmo that will revolutionize air warfare.  She decides to flirt with him to prove to herself that she is independent and desirable and mistress of her fate.  And then she falls in love with him, and there's a middle section where everything went wrong and I wanted to shake her.

But like I said, this is Barclay's story, really.  He is such a glorious character, struggling with his own private issues, trying to reconnect with his past, but all the while opening his home and his heart to those in need.  Wonderful guy.

The ending has a few thrilling heroics tossed in for good measure, much like the endings of the previous two books in the trilogy.  And it all ends satisfactorily, so yay!

Particularly Good Bits:

Blast it all.  Why had she made friends with these people?  They didn't follow the rules, didn't ever grant her the comfort of her preconceived notions.  Even before she'd known the whole truth about them, she'd recognized that, so why had she become so attached? (p. 306)

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate it:  PG for some peril and violence.  No bad language or questionable content.  There's some kissing, though.