This longtime lover of historical fiction was quite drawn to the historical novels in the Heirs of Anton series, which gradually goes backward in history rather than forward. So, I read these four ChristFic books somewhat out of order, finishing up the saga here with Book One, which is set in contemporary times.

Overall, Book Three is my favorite. That story absolutely gutted me—in a wonderful way—and turned out to be the one to convince me to read the whole series. To get an answer to a key question about this family's future.

As it happens, it's fortunate for me that I read this first book last. If I hadn't already known about the past characters and events in the other books, it likely would have taken me too long to get a good sense of what was really going on in this novel and just why it mattered. I'm not certain if I would have kept reading to find out.

Also, the romance in this one wasn't my cup of tea. I wasn't into Kat's changeful, inconsistent thoughts and actions toward Vadeem, and I didn't feel right about him either, due to his flashes of aggression. Multiple times when he's frustrated, he slams his fist into things, doing so at least once while he's arguing with Kat, making her jump. At one point in the book, he thinks about wanting to shake her, and at another point, he feels like "He could strangle Kat for being so breathtaking." Strangle her? Not a good mental picture. I don't find violent sentiments like that to be healthy signs.

On a different note, I generally feel like evangelical romances muddy the waters if they mix spiritual conversion/salvation and romantic wants together. The romances that essentially say in the beginning or middle that "he and she can't be together because only one of them is a Christian." To me, such romance stories often make it appear as though becoming a Christian is the "golden ticket" or means to a romantic end. Or as if accepting Christ and finding a romantic "Happily Ever After" are a package deal. If at least one of the characters believes that if a spiritual conversion doesn't happen, they won't get to have this man or woman they want, then the "come to Jesus" push seems like it's largely for romantic gain. And it makes me doubt if the convert's faith would exist or remain without the romantic benefits they're getting.

Nevertheless, the bigger story in this series did eventually arrive at the answer to the key question I brought to this novel. Although I'd figured ahead of time what the answer would be, it was still poignantly satisfying to see it. ( )

I thought the writing was a bit lazy. I had a hard time distinguishing any of the Russian agents (other than Vadeem) which indicates not much character development. This made it hard to remember who was who and who worked for what agency.

I also thought the original quest (for Kat to find out about her family) got buried in the overall plot (though I did guess that Olga's friend was probably the Marina mentioned earlier in the novel that was related to Kat--or at least a relative of hers.) ( )