A Reluctant Belle

By: Beth White

Narrated by: Holly Adams

Joelle Daughtry has a secret. By day, the impoverished Southern belle has been helping her sisters in their quest to turn the run-down family plantation into a resort hotel after the close of the Civil War. But by night and under a male pseudonym, she has been penning articles for the local paper in support of constructing a school for former slaves. With the Mississippi arm of the Ku Klux Klan gaining power and prestige, Joelle knows she is playing a dangerous game.

Loyalties shift when Schuyler Beaumont, childhood enemy and current investor in the Daughtry House renovation, takes over his assassinated father's candidacy for state office. Joelle finds that in order to protect her family and her home, she and Schuyler will have to put aside their longstanding personal conflict and develop a united public front. The trouble is, what do you do when animosity becomes respect - and even love - if you're already engaged to someone else?

©2019 Beth White (P)2019 Baker Publishing Group

Killed by the narrator

I enjoyed book 1 of this series, so I eagerly started book 2, and was instantly disappointed to hear a different narrator (I LOVE Pilar Witherspoon from book 1!) I was interested enough in the story that I stuck with it, but almost quit several times. This narrator was overly melodramatic, and tried too hard at the various accents. I found myself rolling my eyes and anxiously looking to see how many minutes were left in the book.