Jet pilot cadet Sophie Allard is clever and brave, but she’s not one for following orders. For example, she disobeyed a superior to save a life. With graduation just around the corner and her dreams of becoming a fighter pilot hanging in the balance, she receives a temporary reprieve in the face of tragedy. Her estranged adoptive father, Professor Milo Anderson, has died tragically in an explosion. But Sophie can’t concentrate on the funeral, because she’s found herself part of an investigation into the professor. It’s believed he was a traitor to the U.S. government, working for a shadowy organization known only as the Third Estate. As Sophie attempts to navigate this new information and her own unstable future, she finds herself faced with new surprises: the assassin who killed her adoptive mother twelve years ago, a secret lab under her childhood home, and the return of someone who should be gone.

There are mysteries aplenty in THE THIRD ESTATE SECRETS OF THE MANOR, with the Third Estate itself being chief amongst them. D.R. Berlin accomplishes some seriously rich worldbuilding here, painting a picture of the organization and its goals. Are they ultimately good or evil? Or is it even that simple? Led by the Grey Lady, the Third Estate seems to walk a line all its own, juggling assassination with recruitment and playing by rules that have yet to fully reveal themselves. The brilliant Sophie is at the center of it, and it’s easy to see why: she’s a strong character, her mind filled with knowledge on a variety of subjects, and she’s willing to take risks where necessary.

While the book builds up an exciting world with a dangerous and enigmatic organization at its center, the prose doesn’t always match up to the content. The majority of the dialogue feels very artificial, with characters offering more detail (both personal and scene-setting) than would be appropriate or understandable in conversation. In Sophie’s case, this is lampshaded somewhat: she is called out for it, and says repeatedly that the Professor taught her to speak this way. But the fact remains that everyone’s dialogue feels stilted at best, overwrought at worst.

That’s not enough to drown out the plot, though. It’s difficult to weave a web this tight, and the cliffhanger both promises more adventures ahead and invites the reader to re-read with a closer eye. With care taken for more human dialogue, future THIRD ESTATE novels could fly even higher and hit even harder.

A riveting tale of adventure and espionage, D.R. Berlin’s THE THIRD ESTATE SECRETS OF THE MANOR makes up for its slightly labored dialogue with a legitimately intriguing web of deceit.

~Kara Dennison for IndieReader