Ellen has been living as a free woman in the North for years. Knowing that her photographic memory would be a valuable asset to the Union and a way to help free her people, she has become a spy and been planted as a slave in the home of a Confederate senator. There she meets Malcolm McCall, a Pinkerton agent posing as a Confederate soldier, also in search of information from the Senator's family and friends. Sparks fly, which only makes maintaining their covers more difficult.
I'm going to be honest; I had a pretty good hunch about a major factor in this book's finale from the moment I saw that one of the other women enslaved in Senator McCaffrey's house had a husband named Robert who was a riverboat pilot. That said, remembering things I read for past years of Notable Books and being able to add two and two correctly didn't shortchange the intrigue one bit. The twists and turns of the plot were thrilling and the characters were at once remarkable and quite believable. See the author's note for the historical inspiration if you disagree.
The last book in the trilogy comes out later this month and if I didn't already have such a long TBR list from what has accumulated during four years of committee work, I'd go straight to A Hope Divided so I'd be ready for the conclusion as soon as it's available.
Overall: A