Sarahs Secret (Not Quite a Scoundrel #2) by Tanya Anne Crosby

Sarahs Secret (Not Quite a Scoundrel #2) Reviews

• 
  Gilgamesha

  The beginning of this book was great. The hero and the second half of the book flopped the book.
• 
  Cindy Kline

  Predictable
  
  Sorry. Don’t bother. If you need seventeen more words to warn you off this book, then don’t waste your time.
• 
  Jeanne Lombard

  A bit wishy-washy
  
• 
  Margaret

  Murder, murder and more.
  Sarah's cousin was murdered and she's determined to find the evidence to prove it was her husband. Once Sarah is in the house as teacher for his blind son, things don't add up and Sarah's life is in danger. Only a blind child has proof and his father will save her. A murder mystery romance with passionate sex.
  How did I miss this series?
  This is my first book and I'm hooked!
• 
  AmazingJ

  The Story was good, although it was more of a Mystery Novella than a historical Romance Novella. I tryly enjoy reading Tanya Anne Crosby's Books, this Book had to much Narrative & mystery for my liking.
• 
  D Call

  Rating: PG
  Sex: kisses (I think a sexual interlude is implied, but I'm not sure)
  Language: a few Lord's name in vain
  Violence: arson, attempted murder, murder, suicide
  HEA or Cliffhanger: HEA
  Do I need to read books before this one: no
  Would I read more of the series: no
  
  I found this story to be repetitive. The same ideas were thought over and over and over. The story didn't have very much dialogue, which means the characters weren't developed very well and especially not in relation to each other. We didn't see the romance grow because we didn't see their interaction enough. Point of view changes abruptly. And we never know if Sarah was doing anything with painting. The only reason I gave this 2 stars was because of the lesson to choose to find your way instead of choosing to be a victim.
  
  ----SPOILERS----
  Sarah and Mary are each other's best friends as well as cousins, and they vow to never marry. If they do, Mary will give up a lock of her hair, her point of pride. Sarah will give up painting.
  
  New York City, 1886
  Sarah is determined to find out if Peter killed Mary. Peter was on the brink of financial ruin, Mary was killed one night while he was in a drunken stupor at the other end of the house, and miraculously his finances recovered. Their son, infant Christopher, was blinded by the glass where the intruder broke through the window. Mary's last three months of journals were never recovered. Sarah's going to tutor 6yo Christopher and pretend to be blind.
  
  Christopher asks to be part of the interview. Two women arrive, Mel Frank and Sarah. Peter is instantly taken with Sarah. Sarah is instantly taken with Peter. She gets the job. Ruth Holland is cold. Mel is trained in Braille.
  
  Ruth is Peter's half sister, almost 40. She's against having a teacher live in the house, against having a female teacher.
  
  Saturday, Sarah moves in. Peter learns from Mel that Sarah "lost" her sight the same time she lost her fiancé. She never had a fiancé.
  
  Peter had been in the process of becoming an adulterer when his wife had been killed. Mary had left his bed and his body was hungry. When they'd married, he'd told her he liked her but didn't love her. She'd tried, but they hadn't had time. His business started failing less than 6mo after they married, and that got all his time. No affection for her. When Mary started sleeping in the nursery, he reapplied himself to his business and brought it back to health. Her money is still untouched, waiting for when Christopher is grown up. Cecile Morgan, widow, invested in his firm. Lovers at times since Mary's death. Mary thought they'd been lovers. She'd hoped her moving into the nursery would bring him back to her.
  
  Ruth comes to visit Sarah, threatens her and tries to get her to leave to protect Christopher.
  
  Cecile wants Peter to stay with her at the meeting, he's tried to get away three times. Finally Peter's home, goes to Sarah's room, hears her crying. Just like Mary.
  
  Sunday, Mel wakes Sarah with gossip. Peter's alibi lives in the house: the maid he was about to have sex with.
  
  Sarah is teaching Christopher Braille, and he says his dad says he's smart like his mom. Peter is watching. She seems familiar to him. He invites them to go on a walk. He makes her agree to first names, and she whacks him in the leg with her cane. Peter buys them all taffy and flowers for her. He tells her she's beautiful and imagines kissing her.
  
  Cecile barges into the house, accusing Peter of not meeting her and a client. He has to invite her to dinner. She wants to meet Sarah.
  
  Sarah has dinner in her room and falls asleep. Something wakes her up. She smells her lilacs and then the fire. She gets out of the room, screams for help, and Peter gets her. She takes Christopher and goes outside while Peter fights the fire. She realizes her tea was drugged. Peter finds them, Ruth takes Christopher, Peter takes Sarah to Mary's room. She begs him to let her sleep. Her eyes tell him she's not blind.
  
  Mel wakes Sarah. She's picked up more clothes for her and a new pair of glasses. They discuss the fire; someone doesn't want them there. Mel leaves, Sarah explores Mary's room. Peter comes in wearing only pants. She gets ideas. So does he.
  
  In the nursery, Peter explains colors as feelings. Sarah has Christopher feel her face and Peter's. Peter invites her to see him. He holds her face. She leaves.
  
  Mel confirms the maid's the alibi. The maid also told her how Ruth introduced him to Cecile. Cecile's mother-in-law claims Cecile poisoned her son months after meeting Peter, then Mary is killed 3 months after that. Sarah discovered Mary's portrait of them has only been folded, that Mary still loved her.
  
  Peter hires a detective. Sarah takes Christopher to the park with Mel; he follows. Someone deliberately tries to run over her in the road. He's a bit romantic that night.
  
  Mel comes to her room. Sarah knows she's being watched by someone outside, and she's got to search the study, so Mel will pretend to be Sarah in the meantime. A woman is watching Sarah through her bedroom window, sees 2 shadows. She's the one causing the accidents.
  
  Sarah goes to the library. He finds her. Kisses her. She tells him her true last name, and he knows who she is. I think they make love, but I'm not certain.
  
  The watcher suffocates Mel, thinking she's Sarah. The watcher opens the window. Peter won't have an alibi. She goes into the hall and Christopher comes into the hall. She doesn't speak. Blind people are just a burden.
  
  Sarah and Peter wake in the library in the morning, and he carries her to his bedroom. Christopher is asleep in his bed, having had a nightmare, so Peter carries Sarah into her bedroom. Mel is in the bed, dead.
  
  Ruth sedates Sarah (Ruth uses laudanum a lot), but Peter has to wake her for the police. He recognizes the difference between Mary and Sarah is pluck and inability to hide feelings.
  
  Sarah thinks the reason the cops don't like Peter is because he had started out in the same class as they, but his father had sent him to college and then left him every penny when he died. She tells them she was in the library all night with Peter, though it will run her reputation.
  
  He asks her to marry him. No. He didn't say he loves her. She's not going to make the same mistake Mary did.
  
  After the funeral, the cops decide a burglar broke in, killed Mel, and left without taking anything. They close the case. Sarah says she needs to leave, Peter begs her to stay, kisses her, and says I think I love you. She says I love you, and I'm pretty sure they make love. She leaves in the middle of the night.
  
  Peter pulls her close, kisses her on the nose, but it's Christopher. Christopher swears the boogeyman was in his room again. He had told the boogeyman he smells like Aunt Ruth, and the boogeyman cried. Peter asks Christopher if he wants a brother or sister, yes of course and is Miss Sarah going to be my new mommy. Let's go ask her right now! Peter sends Christopher to do so, and if she says yes, he gets all the taffy he wants.
  
  Christopher find Sarah in the library. She tells him that his father will have to find my answer to that question. She then confesses she's not a teacher, her last name is different, his mother was her cousin, and that she's not blind. He's glad she's not blind, because he hates being blind. He tells Sarah he's brave cuz he scares away the boogeyman that smells like Aunt Ruth. Sarah believes him that there's a boogeyman in his room. Christopher thinks the boogeyman lives in his closet because he found a book in there that smells like him. Sarah asks Christopher to take her to the book.
  
  Peter goes to Cecile's office because Ruth gave him a note that Cecile was angry and he'd lost the Belmont account. He's certain that, though he's been distracted with Sarah, he would not have ignored or forgotten about Belmont. Cecile tells him she's loved him for a very long time, wants him to be happy, and she asks if he loves Sarah. He says yes, and Cecile says she'll continue to be his good friend. But they didn't have a meeting this morning.
  
  Christopher gives Sarah the book; the scent reminds her of who was in her room before the fire was set. It's Ruth's journal. Ruth hates her father, his new wife, Peter, her father again, Peter again, Mary, and confesses to arranging for Mary's death.
  
  Sarah has Christopher hide under Peter's bed with the journal, and tells him not to come out if Ruth calls. She gets out of the room and then encounters Ruth. Ruth invites her to have tea.
  
  Peter comes home, finds Christopher, reads enough of the journal. He finds the two of them in the parlor, and Ruth sees the journal. She drinks three cups of tea before collapsing.
  
  After Ruth's funeral, Peter give Sarah Mary's journal. Inside it, Mary confesses at the end of that she realized pride has kept her away from Sarah and from Peter and she's thinking about moving back into her room. There's also a lock of hair for Sarah.
  
  Sarah goes to Peter's study to propose to him. He thinks she's come to say goodbye. She says, in light of her reputation, he should marry her. He laughs and asks her to propose again just to be sure.
  
  Years later, it's their sixth Christmas together. Christopher's reading from the Bible to his two little sisters while Peter and Sarah talk about her soon-to-end pregnancy.
• 
  Tisa

  Sarah Woodard is the cousin of Mary Holland who she believes was murdered by her husband Peter Holland to get her cousin’s inheritance. He stated that he liked his wife but he never loved her.
  Mary marriage was falling apart after less than a year of marriage. She noticed she believed that her husband was having an affair & decided to move out of the marriage bed into the nursery. Where she could stay with their son who happened to be blind.
  Sarah decided to be a blind tutor along with her friend Mel Frank who was a braille instructor to help teach Peter Holland’s son Christopher.
  Christopher became blind as an infant when a piece of glass from the window of where the intruder came thru the nursery window to murder his mother. Sarah plan was to roam around their home to find Mary’s diary to prove that Peter killed her cousin.
  What Sarah didn’t’ expect was to fall for the man she believed was a murderer. Can her feelings be clouding her judgement? Did Peter kill Mary? Does she believe that there is evil happening at the Holland estate? Is someone watching Sarah? Is she imagining someone was attempting to kill her too? Could that be Peter, or is there someone else trying to stop her from finding out the truth? Or can Peter have two personalities?
  40 yr. old half-sister to Peter, Ruth Holland is the 3rd resident who lives on the estate. Ruth happens to convince a third party to have Cecile Morgan, widow, invest in Peter’s firm. Thru the years after Peter’s wife death Cecile are business partners with benefits. Though Ruth was able to manipulate Mary to believe that Peter was having an affair with his business partner, which made her decided to remove herself from their marriage by moving into Christopher’s nursery. At the time she was punishing Peter & well as trying to win him back. Unfortunately, their marriage didn’t get resolved, Peter became a widow & a suspect for his wife murder.
  Everyone in between the police, society believed that Peter Holland got away with killing his wife for her fortune. Regardless that he put his wife’s fortune in a trust for his son.
  What she has attempted thru the years is manipulate her brother Peter. By feeding suggestions, to others when it relates to investing their funds, Ruth wasn’t blessed to get any money from their parents estate because she is a woman. It goes to the playboy, drinker son. A man who doesn’t understand investments & relies on his sister manipulation to get his business from failing to a float. But in that process he is blinded by the women in his lives.
  Can Sarah & Peter survive the truth after two murders & protect Christopher?
  
• 
  Dawn Dorsey

  Can a sighted woman pose as blind to tutor a blind child? Why would she? Sarah has her reasons, and has to try.
  
  I was planning just to start this book while watching a baseball game, but it did not work that way. Long after the game was over and I should have been in bed, I kept reading, unwilling to put it down. Every time I told myself 'just to the end of this chapter', I just had to find out how the situation ended.
  
  I was fortunate to win this book in an online drawing, and now I am hooked on the author. Of course they hope for that result when they post such offers, but it worked.
  
  The murder mystery started six years ago, and as things progress and grow ever more dangerous, several different characters shift in precedence as suspects. A potential love story just adds to the suspense, and whether or not the reader approves it or not is just one more element.
• 
  Trudy Miner

  As children and cousins, Sarah Woodward and Mary, vowed to never marry, ever. Of course, it didn't work out that way when Mary married Peter Holland when they grew up. Then Mary was murdered in a fire that blinded her baby son Christopher. Sarah was convinced that Peter Holland killed Mary and set out to prove it. When an advertisement appeared in the paper looking for someone who knew Braille and how to teach it to the blind for little Christopher, Sarah knew she now had a chance to prove that Peter killed his wife. Fortunately, Christopher is very smart, older than his age, and a delight. Unfortunately, there were attempts on Sarah's life as she and Peter drew closer together. Did Peter kill his wife and attempt to kill Sarah? When the killer was "unmasked" the ending was a surprise.
  
  This book kept me guessing the whole way through!
• 
  Eniko

  AUDIOBOOK edition
  
  I really enjoyed the story of Peter and Sarah. Learning their stories and how they come together is suspenseful and entertaining. Loved Peter's strength and protectiveness and how loving he was towards his son. Sarah gets more than she signed up for when she used deception to get into that household to figure out her cousin's murder. Ms. Crosby has a way of drawing me in and keeping my attention and this story is no exception. - 5 stars
  
  Mr. Wright is one of my faves and I enjoy listening to his voice for hours, amazing how versatile his voice is. - 5 stars
  
  
• 
  Lela

  I usually write my reviews as I experience the story in real time, but both times I've experienced this book (the first, reading a Kindle e-edition and the second time listening to the audiobook), I've forgotten to write a review! Note to self: do better, because your memory is shady at best and you need these reviews to remember what each book entails.
  
  From what I recall, this story has a good plot with a notable plot twist and a heavy splash of "who-done-it". Personally, I enjoyed reading it. Which is just as well because I'll need to read it again to write a proper review.
• 
  Paulette

  I really didn't like this book. I did finish it; I'm not sure why. I thought that making an unmarried older woman a horrible villain was awful. It was obvious she was the villain and there was nothing that ameliorated her behavior. I also thought that having the heroine pretend she was blind was manipulative, dishonest and offensive. No one in this book spoke to the heart. I have read other books by Ms Crosby but I think this is the last one.
• 
  Pat Wittorf

  Blind leading the blind
  
  This book has an interesting twist to the story with a very smart little blind boy the focal point. Jealousy, greed, selfishness all abound, with pride and stubbornness thrown in to further muddy the waters. Murder most foul indeed, and even though the culprit appears obvious early on you can't keep from thinking, "Maybe I'm wrong and it's really ... ".
• 
  kookyquinn

  Couldn't get over the breech in girl code. Super hard to get through this one. I had fantasies about being at the dentist or having a rectal examination vs reading it but somehow I managed to preserve.
• 
  Cheryl

  wonderful
  
  A sweet, heartbreaking, heartwarming story filled with heartache, lies, murder, betrayal, and most of all love. A stubborn woman learns it’s not all as it seems as she searches for the truth.
• 
  Marjorie

  Very good story
  
  Thanks for writing a very exciting book and love story too. I can’t buy books, but I read the free ones and I recommend it to anyone.
• 
  Bella Levan

  Secrets
  
  Good story with lots of mystery. All characters are good and have a story to tell. All of writers books are great!
• 
  Erika

  DNF
• 
  Ellise Weaver

  Loved it
  
  Enjoyed the murder mystery as well as the romance. Sad ending but happy epilogue. Loved Sarah and Peter's love story.
• 
  Patty Redman

  good
  
  I enjoyed the book. It does have sadness in it. The characters were well described except I couldn’t quite get a picture in my mind of Ruth