Isabel Luna is like the Jan Brady of the Brady Bunch. A middle sister longing to break out of everyone’s shadow and be more than people think of her. That’s what the author initially believed of her creation too, but as you get to know Isabel, the reader and one Captain Sirius Dovan learn there’s a lot more depth than people realize.

But first, Isabel has to realize it for herself.

While her older sister was romancing Parliment’s sly Fox, Isabel’s prowling in the ton’s libraries is a cover for her real mission. The night they fled Mexico, Padre Ignacio entrusted her with a mission to gather information on potential French allies and their plans in order to help Mexico outmanuver them.

Two years since she arrived, Isabel has gotten nada except grief from the seering blue-eyed Sirius.

Readers may remember that the patriarch Luna has set his daughters against each other in order to make them obedient while holding little value for them overall. Isabel gets the most grief for her bookish nature, unease with social life and her darker skin. She longs not to be invisible but moreover, she wants to be useful, and earn appreciation so this espionage job is perfect for her.

Her current target is a count who is one of the few people who truly seems to see her and appreciate her, bypassing her more charismatic Gaby and Ana Maria.

The other person is Sirius who is also targeting the count for his familial ties to the French. To the rest of the ton, he’s a merry rogue seducing bored society wives but that’s a cover as most of those wives are targets of information for his real job as agent for the Crown’s Home Office. If only Isabel didn’t keep distracting him.

This is a classic underdog story but De La Rosa has a fresh perspective as Isabel’s self-worth isn’t only tied to Sirius falling in love with her. Rather it is a gradual realization with the aid of her sisters, and her own successes that she starts to believe in her own mantra of not caring what others think. However, those insecurities sink in deep and she has moments of relapse where Sirius is concerned. Partially because when you’re told you’re unattractive and wothless enough, it’s hard to believe it’s untrue. And Isabel knowing that her heart belongs in her home country and she will return which seems incompatiable with romance with an Englishman.

But Sirius is a fighter, for his country and for the ones he loves even though his own insecurity blinds him to this. As a survivor of the Crimean War, and poster boy for England’s heroics, he has a deep well of survivor’s guilt that makes it hard to accept the happiness that comes his way. It even goes further to being born the spare of his family which I felt wasn’t delved in enough. But it does provide a reasonable motivation for his job and obstacle to romance. This felt more like it was Isabel’s story than Sirius so I feel like the author could have done more with his survivor’s guilt and PTSD but I understand there isn’t time to cover all these issues.

But his arc of seeing Isabel and sharing their complementary insecurities and love for books was heartwarming. He plays a rogue but Isabel cuts to the core that it is an act, Sirius is a caring man. Her first impression had been faulty but she sees him now just as he sees her.

Plus that scene under the study desk and in his library, hello- hot!! These probably have my new favorite scenes as she keeps up a sweet hidden sunshine/sunshine romance with the spy intrigue that has you on the edge of your seat.

As before, De La Rosa combines familial and romance threads with a good dose of history and controversial topics to think on such as colonialism in regards to the looting/displaying of artifacts from other countries, colorism and a woman’s role being limited to a performance for the public in order to get the best marriage.

For those looking for some espionage suspense tied with a heart-tugging romance between like-minded souls than look no further than this, and now I’m very eager for the last novel in the trilogy with firebrand Gaby and Whitfield.

5 stars.