Temperance's Trial (Virtues and Valor, Part 1) by Hallee Bridgeman

Title: Temperance’s Trial (Virtues and Valor Part 1)

Author: Hallee Bridgeman

Pages: 105

Year: 2014

Publisher: Olivia Kimbrell Press

Note: I received a free eBook copy of this novella through The Book Club Network in exchange for my honest opinion.

About the book:

     The Third Reich seeks to extract the information she alone knows.

     Marie Gilbert and her elder brother flee from Vichy France after the Gestapo arrest her father for suspicion of aiding Jewish children to escape the oncoming fascist front. Once in London, Marie is recruited into an experimental all female cohort dubbed the Virtues, a collection of seven extraordinary women with highly specialized skills.

     Known only by her code name, Temperance, she is trained to operate a wireless radio and returns to her beloved France. With a new identity, Marie clandestinely communicates vital intelligence directly back to Headquarters but unwillingly attracts the attention and apparent adoration of a handsome but ruthless Nazi officer, Oberleutnant Leopold Schafer.

     As the H-hour to execute their daring mission draws ever closer, Marie plays a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with the unrelenting and merciless young Lieutenant Schafer and the Nazi soldiers under his command.

     Temperance’s Trial is part one of seven serialized novellas entitled the Virtues and Valor series.

     Seven valorous women – different nationalities, ethnicities, and social backgrounds – come together as a team called the Virtues.

     In 1941 Great Britain has a special war department that assembles an experimental and exclusively female cohort of combat operatives. Four willing spies, a wireless radio operator, an ingenious code breaker, and a fearless pilot are each hand-picked, recruited, and trained to initiate a daring mission in Occupied France. As plans are laid to engineer the largest prison break of Allied POWs in history, the Nazis capture the Virtues’ radio operator. It will take the cohesive teamwork of the rest of the women to save her life before Berlin breaks her and brings the force of the Third Reich to bear.

     Some find love, some find vengeance, and some discover the kind of strength that lives in the human heart when all they can do is rely on each other and their shared belief. Courage, faith and valor intersect but, in the end, one pays the ultimate price.

     Introducing the Virtues and Valor series by Hallee Bridgeman. Seven serialized novella, each inspired by real people and actual events, reveal the incredible story of amazing heroines facing the ultimate test of bravery.

My review:

     This is an incredible historical novella.

     This novella sucked me in immediately. The main character Marie Gilbert, code name Temperance, caught my interest from the exciting first moment we see her. I hadn't been aware of the women that worked as operatives in occupied France during WWII before hearing about this series. I thoroughly enjoyed this introduction to their contribution to the Allies efforts to defeat Germany. I will be trying to expand my knowledge of these brave women and their missions. The story flows smoothly and quickly.

     My only complaints about this story are that it was too short and it ends with a cliffhanger. But then it is only part one of a 7 part serial novel. I will definitely have to read the other 6 parts to find out the rest of the story. I am hooked and have to give it a 5-star rating. I highly recommend this wonderful novella.