A Parcel for Prudence: Book review

A Parcel for Prudence: Virtues and Valor #4

By Hallee Brigdeman

Historical fiction, inspirational ficiton

Synopsis:

MURIEL TOLSON grew up with all of the luxuries life could offer. As the daughter of a duke, she married the second son of an earl and lived in style on his family’s estate. When her husband ships off to fight the Nazis in Africa, Muriel heeds his request to use her intelligence and language skills to help with the war effort. She approaches the British secret services and soon finds herself recruited into an experimental all female cohort dubbed the Virtues, a collection of seven extraordinary women with highly specialized skills.

Assigned the code name of PRUDENCE, her natural French allows her to infiltrate Occupied France where she works as a courier; carrying messages, money, and sometimes people through the secret resistance network aiding the allies to accomplish very dangerous missions behind enemy lines.

My thoughts

The other Virtues eluded to the nature of the character of Prudence, that she was of high status, of noble upbringing. I found it intriguing to finally learn so much about her background. I also found her determination to take on such a dangerous covert position as a carrier, someone who delivers messages such as packages, money, encrypted messages, and even persons, all around the towns of Occupied France. In fact, this particular position was so dangerous, they trained her to withstand interrogation tactics. That was ridiculously intense to read. (in the story anyhow. Of course I have no idea in regards to the real life version). Though she still didn’t strike me as someone with that kind of tenacity. There seemed to be a gap in between her marriage to her noble husband, and the time he left for WWII, where she became more of a self-reliant, determined young lady in quite a short amount of time.

It struck me as odd, but she is extremely intelligent. Fluent in three languages at least? I can’t remember if it were more. The story was fun and interesting. Full of tension throughout – she runs into a couple of other ‘secret agents’ whom she had known in her past life, which made things much more interesting. There’s quite a bit of action near the end. Fun to read! I enjoyed the overlap of her story with Temperance’s story as they interacted with each other a couple of times. It was very interesting to read the other side of the dialogue and scene interaction between the two, especially after 2 other previous stories in between Prudence’s and Temperance’s stories.

Things are falling into place. Many more things make sense. If you can invest in the full-length volume of all of the stories together I would definitely recommend that. I happened to grab all of the books while they were on sale, but the full-length volume set doesn’t cost that much.

Can’t wait to read more!