The True Colors series is a great Christian Historical Fiction Series. The stories are based on actual historical events, but with a fictionalized story. The thing I enjoy is many of the events are not well known, so I end up heading out and doing a bit of research on my own each time. The other interesting thing is that each of the books is written by a different author, but they are all well written and follow the same theme. Although there are 12 books in the series, they can be read in any order, as they are all separate stories about different events. I am working my way through this series for my Finish a Series Challenge as well as Beat the Backlist.

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The White City (True Colors #1) by Grace Hitchcock, Rachel Botchan (Narrator)

Published March 1st 2019 by Barbour Books, June 21st 2019 by Recorded Books

3.5 Stars:

I have been enjoying the True Colors series, historical fiction based on true crime stories, many not well known. H.H. Holmes is notoriously known as one of America’s first serial killers who lured victims into his hotel dubbed the “Murder Castle” during the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. The number of victims fluctuates from 9 to 27 (the number he confessed to at one point.) This is a well known event with several books written about it, but this story is told through the eyes of Winnifred Wylde, the daughter of Inspector Wylde with the Chicago police. Winnifred believes she witnessed a woman being kidnapped and wants to investigate. Her father allows her to poke around, but assigns Jude Thorpe, a new policeman to their department, as her bodyguard. She is pretty sure it is H. H. Holmes who is responsible for the missing women and sets up a plan to trap him, thus putting herself in his crosshairs and possibly as his next victim.

The White City (True Colors)

Winnie was quite the interesting protagonist. Her aunt is trying to marry her off to an acceptable suitor, but the ones her aunt finds suitable, don’t interest Winnie. She is also quite the independent character, who had me chuckling many times with her antics. I never knew what she was going to get herself involved in. Percy is an author who is interested in pursuing her, while Jude is a lowly police detective, but keeps Winnie’s attention. Jude and Percy were both excellent suitors, but, of course, Winnie will need to pick one. Winnie’s aunt has one goal, to marry her off and end this sleuthing nonsense. The mystery was not difficult, it was just a matter of collecting evidence to arrest the culprit. I will say Winnie does put herself in danger a couple of times, but fortunately, Jude is there to save her. I have read several books in this series and will say I found this to be the weakest story I read, perhaps because it is so well known and there really was not much of a mystery or story beyond the romance. Having said that, I did enjoy the story, it is just not one of my favourites. Rachel Botchan’s narration of the audiobook was enjoyable with some good emotion and voice.

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The Blue Cloak (True Colors #5) by Shannon McNear, Kate Forbes (Narrator)

Published March 1st 2020 by Recorded Books, Barbour Books

4 Stars: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Blue Cloak is a story set in 1797 during frontier times. Rachel Taylor is working at her family’s way station along the Wilderness Road in Tennessee. Her best friend is getting married to Wiley Harpe, but the wedding doesn’t go as planned. Wiley and his cousin go on a killing spree dragging their family (3 pregnant wives) along. They kill the wrong man when Ben Langford is on their trail after they kill his cousin. The group get captured, but the men escape. The women are acquitted, but on their way home to Knoxville, they sneak off and meet up with the Harpe cousins. More murder and robbery occurs until they are once again captured. As we learn about how the women are treated and threatened, I wanted them to be captured and killed to finally release the women from their clutches.

The Blue Cloak (True Colors)

These were outlaws and murderers that I had never heard of. The story is based on real events beginning in 1797. The book was both fascinating and sometimes difficult to get through. The writing is wonderful and the characters come to life. Of course, the crimes were horrendous, which made me want to see them punished after they destroyed so many lives, for no apparent reason in many cases. Even though the crimes were terrible, the story carries a thread of hope and faith. I also liked that there was not a lot of graphic detail, but the gist of what was happening was present. The women that the Harpe’s considered their wives had my deepest sympathy. What they went through, how they were treated and how broke they became was so sad. It is easy to judge them, but it was apparent that they felt they had no choice. There are definitely some triggers in this story that some people will want to avoid, but overall, this is a well written story about a little known crime wave, that also has hope, love, friendship and faith. Kate Forbes narrated this story and does a wonderful job with the voices, the emotion and the intense storyline. I very much enjoyed the audiobook.