Give Me Thine Heart

Worst spy story I ever read...aww. Seriously, if you don't wish to do a lot of historical research as an author, simply write contemporary. At least I got four books off my TBR list and two books off my physical shelves.

Some breakdown of the errors and issues with this one:
Content:
#1 Swearing “by God” in a Christian novel, not once but twice, and turning around and quoting Scripture within the papragraph.
#2 Calling one's wife a chit

Nakedness, talk of having to wash a sick man's private parts and then doing so, alcohol and tobacco use

Now for the history, geography, and infectious diseases trivia of the day! SPOILERS may occur without warning. If actual research on these topics did occur, I'd love to know some sources...

Geography: 1814 missionaries to Uganda? Uganda wasn't named Uganda until it became a British territory in 1894, and a push to send missionaries into the region wasn't until 1844. And Uganda didn't become an independent country until all the way down in 1962.

Infectious diseases: typhus (also referred to continually as a proper noun, which it is NOT...diseases are lower case unless named for a proper place or a person) is said to be “always fatal” and they diagnose it by a “tell-tale rash” and fever. They mention it strange that some children at an orphanage survived it. In actuality, depending on which of the three strains of typhus is passed, death rates among the untreated range from 10-60%, generally around 30%. It's also not passed from human to human, but must be contracted via a bug bite. Closing a door on a sick man in a ship wouldn't contain the illness because bugs would go right past the door. Moreover, there are three diseases with very common symptoms to typhus, such as malaria, and even now it requires a skin test to see if typhus is the actual cause of illness. When a character catches pneumonia, a sore throat is cited as a symptom, which is also incorrect. And the characters evince relief that it's just pneumonia–except the facts don't agree. Pneumonia, unlike typhus, is more common, and untreated is one of the seven leading causes of death in the world. Death rates for it are close, 10-50%, with an average of 30%.

History: while mentioning the history of the country and the sicknesses, it's also worth mentioning that the time period of the mission massacre changes halfway, from her “crouching as a young girl” to hide from the attackers, to a mention of several years an orphan, and then “one year” since the attacks. Quite confusing. Culturally, she is more ready to run away with a man of questionable repute than to consent to marriage with the man she dislikes; no girl of principle in the Regency period would think it possible to be a “girl of morals” and run away with a stranger of unknown origins. This twist was highly unlikely for me and was the point that really made me break with the believability of the tale.

Editing: oh, poor me! From anachronistic terms like “come on, man” to the frequent missing commas and the continual wrong spellings, it was often hard to make out the author's true meaning. I got some good chuckles out of “bowel” instead of “bowl” and “in tact” instead of “intact,” for instance. One sentence near the end actually reads, “Let that me his just deserts,” which I think would be hilarious if the speaker foisted the villain into an actual desert and left him there.

I'm sorry to have to leave an entirely negative review, but this little story honestly needs an overhaul with a good content and copy editor team. I'd like a refund on my hour of reading time, please.