Review: The Number of Love by Roseanna M. White

Genius, genius, genius.

That’s what I’ve got to say about Roseanna. She is an absolute writing genius! It seems each of her books get better than the last. Her 2019 release, The Number of Love, is no exception to that; it is by far my favorite one yet! The way she weaves together the complex threads of her stories into one cohesive, multilayered tale is what I aspire to!

Three years into the Great War, England’s greatest asset is their intelligence network-field agents risking their lives to gather information, and codebreakers able to crack every German telegram. Margot De Wilde thrives in the environment of the secretive Room 40, where she spends her days deciphering intercepted messages. But when her world is turned upside down by an unexpected loss, for the first time in her life numbers aren’t enough.

Drake Elton returns wounded from the field, followed by an enemy who just won’t give up. He’s smitten quickly by the intelligent Margot, but how can he convince a girl who lives entirely in her mind that sometimes life’s answers lie in the heart?

Amid biological warfare, encrypted letters, and a German spy who wants to destroy not just them but others they love, Margot and Drake will have to work together to save themselves from the very secrets that brought them together.

This book, y’all. This book. I knew it was going to be good and that I’d love it, but it still surpassed my expectations. Roseanna’s characters are full-fledged people. They aren’t just flat book characters that have a few interesting characteristics thrown in there to give it an element of realism. No, they feel alive and fully formed, as if they really lived a hundred years ago.

Margot, the heroine of this story, is a delightfully quirky math genius who often thinks in numbers, sees patterns and statistics in everything, and can calculate the amount of stitches in your clothing just by observing. She was so fun to read about, and the flow of the writing keeps you effortlessly within her unique train of thought. But isn’t just Margot that is so brilliantly written. The hero, Drake, and side characters like Dot, Camden, Redvers Holmes, Admiral Hall, etc. are all vividly portrayed and stand out in their own way.

The villain, Das Gespenst (The Ghost in German), is easily Roseanna’s best bad guy yet. He’s just creepy enough to be a frightening foe, but human enough to make you sympathize with the twisted path that made him that way. In fact, he was, in an odd way, my favorite character outside of Margot. He’s the sort you hate but also can’t help but love because of how complex of a villain he is. I was left guessing who he really was and how he was connected to different events until the final chapters. 

Ultimately, this is a fun, satisfying wartime adventure full of fascinating historical details that I think any fans of the Edwardian/WW1 era will love. And when you discover what the number of love actually is, you’ll be sighing over it for the rest of your life like I am. Ha! 

5/5 Stars for The Number of Love! I can’t wait to get my hands on book two, On Wings of Devotion, which just released this week. I’ve already heard that it’s even better than this one, so stay tuned for my review!