Elizabeth Camden - From this Moment

Romulus White has tried for years to hire illustrator Stella West for his renowned scientific magazine.
She is the missing piece he needs to propel his magazine to the forefront of the industry. But Stella abruptly quit the art world and moved to Boston with a single to solve the mysterious death of her beloved sister. Romulus, a man with connections to high society and every important power circle in the city, could be her most valuable ally.

Sparks fly the instant Stella and Romulus join forces, and Romulus soon realizes the strong-willed and charismatic Stella could disrupt his hard-won independence. Can they continue to help each other when their efforts draw the wrong kind of attention from the powers-that-be and put all they've worked for at risk?

Comment: One more bet on this author and her work. Although past experiences were mostly meh, one was very good and i keep hoping the same wonder can be replicated, so this is the 6th book I try by this author...

In this novel we meet scientific magazine owner Romulus White, a man who is eager to hire artist Stella West to illustrate the designs included in his magazine for he believes this will help sell more but it will also help the content come to life to those who write the articles. London based Stella has always declined but she is now back in Boston for dire reasons, she wants to investigate what really happened to her younger sister Gwendolyn, who died, presumably by drowning. Stella knows her sister was a great swimmer and doesn't accept the police inquest result, but the more she tries to follow the clues, the more obstacles she finds. Becoming friends with Romulus seems a blessing at first but he, too, starts being targeted and it feels everyone around her is in some kind of danger. What could have her sister found to be so serious that caused all these problems and worries now?

What really feels frustrating to me is that the plots of this author's books are always so compelling and there is content I'm very interested in but then always something happens to bring me down while I read. In the case of this book I was annoyed at the characters' continuous change of heart and on how many problems they had to deal with which made some chapter feel rather depressing.

This story, I'd say, can be said to focus on two elements: the investigation Stella is doing to know what happened to her sister and her slow developing romance with Romulus. We also have a secondary romance featuring Romulus' cousin Evelyn and her ex, with whom she is still in love with and circumstances bring them closer once more. There are a few sentences here and there which we see from her POV, but in my opinion this is unnecessary and, to be honest, I've felt this added noting to the plot, there was no need to have Evelyn's POV in the big scheme of things.

My focus was definitely on the main romance and the murder investigation. Since this is an historical, there are procedures which would not be seen in current stories, and since this author writes so called "christian fiction" nothing explicit is described. I wasn't concerned about either aspect and have read other books where these elements were used to the best advantage, but here I was left annoyed because what felt so promising in the beginning started to become heavy and depressing the more things advanced.

Romulus and Stella start of as two people who are attracted to each other and are at opposed sides of something, and I hoped the proximity over the murder investigation would help them see the other side of each other. This did happen from time to time but what develops after certain events related to the investigation only makes things worse. Since Stella is poking into things someone wants to keep hidden, there's this campaign, let's call it, to discredit her and to force her to give up, which she doesn't. Romulus is friendly and helpful but when his magazine is threatened, he pushes Stella aside. then they are close again. Then again.. well, this back and forth started to annoy me.

This is where a more contemporary setting would have helped... from a legal POV, some things today wouldn't happen as frustratingly as described, and this did affect my impression of the characters, they started to act very juvenile and without a stronger romantic tension, things started to feel repetitive and dragged, which made me feel the problems would never be solved. It became tiresome and gloomy to read about what they faced.

The murder investigation turned out to be easily explained and the culprit had a very thin motive. Certainly the author could have done better, after making the characters go through so much hassle and worries. By this point, I was no longer that attached to the main characters and the HEA was granted anyway, so my attention wandered. Things end up as well as one can imagine but the process to get there was more than frustrating. At least, one more out of the pile.

Grade: 6/10