CBR17 Book 55: "Paladin's Grace" by T. Kingfisher

Page count: 360 pages

Rating: 4 stars

CBR17 Bingo: Purple (most of the cover, barring the cover image, is a lovely lavender purple)

Stephen is one of the paladins of the Saint of Steel (who was a god, despite the name), who died very suddenly and unexpectedly a few years back. No one thought gods could die, and a lot of his paladins killed themselves and caused massive amounts of damage when it happened. Now, Stephen and the six other paladins who remain are housed at the Temple of the White Rat and volunteer as bodyguards whenever that's required. Stephen and the other paladins are berserkers; they used to descend into battle madness when fighting for their god. Without their god to call them back, the paladins worry about new berserker rages, as they may not be able to stop without any force to call them back. So Stephen knits socks and does his best to see to the well-being of his brother and sister paladins.

 One day, when patrolling the city, he runs into a woman being harassed, and to foil her attackers, they pretend to have a steamy tryst in an alleyway. Grace is a skilled perfumer, with nothing but negative baggage in the romantic department. She shares her lodgings with a charming spy, who acts as her agent and tries to make sure Grace makes the sort of money she deserves. Grace wasn't really expecting to ever see her rescuer again, but they meet at a court function, and are soon witnesses to an assassination attempt. Soon, both Grace and Stephen are involved in a complicated power struggle, and to make matters worse, there's a mysterious killer out there on the streets who chops the heads off its victims. 

I've liked all of the Kingfisher books I have read, especially her fairy tale retellings. I even mostly liked What Moves the Dead, despite being very creeped out by it throughout. I've owned many of her Saint of Steel books as e-books for a while, but when it was announced that T. Kingfisher (or Ursula Vernon, as she is really called) would be one of the guests of honour at Norcon (a very small and intimate fantasy/sci-fi convention at the University of Oslo) this year, it seemed like the perfect time to acquire the books in paperback, so I could get them signed. I also had grand plans to read all four stories before the festival started, but since this happened just before the end of term, I was pretty exhausted from work, and had only read a book and a half of the series.

Meeting authors is always such a strange and wonderful experience to me, but T. Kingfisher was funny, gracious and very interested in chatting with her fans in between the panels she took part in. There were also several opportunities during the two days to get books signed. She also had a big signing in the fantasy/sci-fi/all things nerd shop in the centre of town, where I saw a picture of the queue. It went for more than a block and a half. At the actual festival, I don't think there were ever more than six people having to wait in line - it was great.

It's not that I've gone completely off YA as I get older, but romantic fantasy with YA characters is getting less appealing to me. A romance with slightly more mature characters is therefore feels so much more satisfying. None of the protagonists in any of the Saint of Steel books are teenagers (or the age where they could play teenagers on TV). They have lived eventful lives, with all the advantages and disadvantages this involves, and they have to negotiate their awakening romantic feelings while considering the position they're in and the people they feel beholden to. 

Grace used to be married, and her ex is clearly a real piece of work. Stephen struggles to find a place where he truly belongs, and is a protector through and through. He wants to protect and be with Grace, but the thought of abandoning his fellow paladins at the Temple of the White Rat, the only family he now has, may be impossible for him. Trying to sort out the political machinations and trying to find a creepy decapitating killer are challenges enough, but Grace and Stephen also need to figure out how to hopefully manage a happy ending together. 

As well as the romantic relationship, which develops gradually between Grace and Stephen, Kingfisher also includes other important people in her protagonsist's lives. Having lost pretty much everything, even his sense of identity, when his god/Saint died, the remaining surviving paladins are all Stephen have left, and they are all as family. The bishop in the Temple of the White Rat may be his benefactress and de facto employer, but she clearly cares a lot for the broken knights. Grace may have had a troubled past, but she's found herself with a formidable best friend. Because of her husband, Grace doesn't really have any way to prove her previous accomplishments, which might have made it difficult for her to support herself, but thanks to her friend and landlady Marguerite, her perfumes are sought after and exclusive. In fantasy, the heroines are often independent and move about in male dominated societies, not all of them have any female friends. Women supporting other women is one of my favourite things, so I'm glad Kingfisher showed how loyal the women are towards one another. 

Of the four books in this series, I think the third, Paladin's Hope, is my favourite. I really enjoyed all of them, though, and hope that Kingfisher will write books about the remaining paladins who haven't found their happy endings yet, as well. 

Judging a book by its cover: When I first got the new paperback editions of the Saint of Steel series, I was a bit taken aback by how very pastel they all were (this one is lavender, the second is a delicate pale green, the third is baby blue and the fourth book is very pink). The cover illustrations are really nice, though, and really give a good impression of how the characters are described in the story (sadly, not always the case). 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR17 Book 53: "The Blonde Who Came in from the Cold" by Ally Carter

Page count: 384 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

Thank you to Avon and Netgalley for this ARC. My opinions are my own.

Official plot summary: 

Ten years ago, they joined the CIA.

Six years ago, he left the game.

Five years ago, they fell in love.

One year ago, she ran out into the cold with absolutely no intention of ever coming back.

And two minutes ago, they woke up, bloody and bruised and handcuffed together in the dark.

They don’t know where they are. They don’t know how they got there. And they have absolutely no idea who is after them or what this nameless, faceless villain wants.

The only thing that’s clear is that, after ten years of covers and chemistry, secrets and lies, these two rival spies have been sucked into their greatest mission yet, and now they’re going to have to team up to stay alive. (If they don’t kill each other first.)

Ten years ago, Alex and King enroll in "spy school" together and become instant rivals. King is basically a legacy recruit, with his grandparents and father absolutely legendary in spy circles. Alex wants adventure and a challenge and getting away from her constant guilt of being the healthy twin, while her sister had multiple heart surgeries and ended up very frail because Alex took up too much space in the womb. She's got a lot ofissues, and she'd rather cut herself off from her entire family to live a life of constant subterfuge rather than properly deal with them.

While Alex and King are bitter rivals, they also clearly do excellent work together, with the result that they keep being paired up on missions, where both of them staunchy ignore their amazing chemistry and mutual attraction to continue their weird feud. As the summary reveals, they eventually admit their feelings for one another. However, after Alex' twin sister is kidnapped by sinister forces who believe her to be Alex (not knowing that Alex had an identical twin in the first place), she is prepared to drop everything to go rescue her twin. King, being the more cautious of the two wants her to take some time and make a plan, resulting in an argument where foolish things like "If you leave now, never come back" are uttered, and actually believed. 

So for a whole year, King has been desperately searching for Alex to apologise and win her back, while Alex has hidden herself away so well that no one knows where she's been. They wake up handcuffed together, with no memory of the previous 48 hours, and need to use all of their wits and skills to figure out why they've been tricked into a trap of some sort, who is behind it and how they are going to get the best of their mysterious enemies.

The story is told mostly in alternating chapters set in the present, where Alex and King are in a strange and very dangerous situation, and trying to figure out what the heck is going on, while also trying to process all their hurt feelings about the last time they saw each other, and the past, starting with the evening before Alex goes to "spy school" and first meets King, who tries to warn her off a career in espionage. As the book progresses, we skip between the present and get glimpses into the past ten years, in especially significant points of Alex and King's relationship, seeing their relationship develop slowly from rivals to reluctant allies to friends to lovers.

As someone who loves a good spy story (in book, TV or movie form), this book was exactly my wheelhouse. It's action packed and features all sorts of exciting spy scenarios, but if Alex and King weren't such engaging protagonists, I don't think it would have mattered what the plot turned out to be. By alternating between the present and the past, Ms. Carter keeps gradually showing the readers how the couple's relationship came to be, and why it was such a dramatic thing for Alex to cut off all contact with King for a whole year. The couple are clearly much better together than apart, but have both had complicated lives and steamer trunks full of emotional and psychological baggage that make it hard for them to actually believe anyone could love them or want a life with them.

This is the second book in the series, but works perfectly well as a standalone. In fact, I hadn't read the first one when I got this ARC, and rather went back and read the first book, The Blonde Identity, once I was done with this one. That book gives us the POV of Alex's twin sister who is on a breakneck adventure through Europe, while suffering memory loss, and the handsome spy who is trying to keep her from being captured by rival spy factions or killed. 

If you like action and suspense and prickly rivals becoming each other's perfect partners, this is a fast and entertaining read. I highly recommend it. 

Judging a book by its cover: I am frequently very critical of the cartoony covers, but there are exceptions to the rule, and this is one of them. This image is really nicely stylized and it would not be as charming or effective if there were real people on the cover. Then it would just look sort of naff. The colour choices, the cat's eye sunglasses, the reflection in the glasses, our heroine looking so very cool - it all works for me. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR16 Book 32: "You Were Made to Be Mine" by Julie Anne Long

Page count: 364 pages

Rating: 3.5 stars

Christian Hawkes was a British spymaster during the Napoleonic wars and ended up spending years in a French prison after someone sold him out. Now he's free, but left destitute and mostly friendless. The Earl of Brundage, tipped to become an ambassador, hires Hawkes to locate his missing fiancée and a very valuable necklace (who was only on loan to the Earl) the young woman had in her possession when she went missing.

Hawkes would like nothing better than to tell Brundage to go to hell, but he needs money, and he also needs time to find enough evidence that Brundage was a French spy during the war (which has helped him rise to the position he's now in) and the man who betrayed Hawkes to the French. He most likely stole Hawkes' money too. Pretending to look for Brunage's intended will give Hawkes more time to find the evidence he needs.

Lady Aurelie Capet (a distant cousin to French royalty), Brundage's betrothed, has indeed run away. After discovering that Brundage was not the man she believed him to be, she saved, plotted and schemed to get as far away from him as she can. Alone and scared, she has managed to cross the English Channel and has found refuge in the Grand Palace on the Thames under an assumed name.

Hawkes dramatically arrives a few days later, staggering over the doorstep, bleeding profusely from a stab wound (or maybe a gunshot wound, I forget and I can't bother to go back and double-check). Either way, it's a serious injury and the arrival causes quite the uproar amongst the owners and guests. As the inhabitants of the Palace for several days had anticipated the arrival of a clergyman, there is initially some confusion as to the identity of their new, unconscious houseguest. Aurelie feels sympathy for the injured man and offers to care for him and sit by his bedside until he wakes up. Once he does awaken, it doesn't take long for the couple to fall head over heels. 

Hawker never had any intention of reuniting a sheltered young woman with a villain like Brundage, but his revenge quest against the man becomes even more serious after he discovers what actually happened to Aurelie and why she felt she had no chance but to run away from him. Until Hawker can acquire the final pieces of evidence against the man, however, he is the one in danger. Brundage has accused Hawker of kidnapping Aurelie and stealing the valuable necklace.  

Throughout reading the story, I kept wondering if Hawker (both the name and character) were inspired by Joanna Bourne's spymaster Hawker in The Black Hawk (a book I absolutely adore). I couldn't find anything in the acknowledgements about it, but I'm still going to wonder. 

This was another enjoyable romance from Julie Anne Long, but readers should know that there is indirect mention of rape in the book, and there is a fair age gap between Aurelie and Hawker. I'm not a huge fan of insta-love stories, but this one is done well. There are some romances by Long that I re-read again and again, and while this was fine, I don't think this is one I'm going to revisit multiple times. 

Judging a book by its cover: I don't know what cover designers have against Julie Anne Long's romance novels. Most of the covers in this series are absolutely dreadful. There are so many things that just seem off with this cover. The weird pose while kissing, which seems like they'd both get neck and/or back pain. His hair. Her dress, with skirts that seem to take up a third of the cover. The kiss also looks awkward. Not great, Avon, you can do better. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR16 Book 8: "The Secret Service of Tea and Treason" by India Holton

Page count: 368 pages

Rating: 5 stars

Alice Dearlove works for the secret organisation the Agency of Undercover Note Takers, or A.U.N.T., staffed by spies and agents disguised as ladies' maids, butlers, footmen, and other household staff who mostly go unnoticed by the higher classes, but are usually in a position to see and hear everything. She's one of their top agents, known within A.U.N.T only as Agent A. Usually, Miss Dearlove works alone and gets excellent results while doing so.

Now she faces one of the biggest challenges of her career. Not only does she have to cooperate with someone on her next mission, but her partner is none other than her biggest rival within A.U.N.T., the elusive Agent B, Daniel Bixby. Now Agents A and B have to learn to work together, while also pretending to be married. There's a plot to assassinate the queen, and Alice and Daniel have to pretend to be pirates, happily married, and fool an entire houseparty full of eccentric, murder-happy ladies and their husbands while trying to locate the potential weapon and foil the plot. 

Since they're consummate professionals, both Alice and Daniel are determined to complete the job quickly and efficiently while remaining strictly platonic the whole time. When more public displays of affection aren't necessary to play their parts, of course. Obviously, wanting to be convincing in their assumed roles, they might have to practice the duties of husband and wife in the privacy of their own rooms, as well. It's not like they'd get carried away and fall for one another, just because they are forced to be fake married, sharing a bedroom (with just one bed). After all, A.U.N.T doesn't allow for any affection between agents, and once their mission is done, Alice and Daniel will be going their separate ways, possibly never seeing one another again.

This might not be a 5-star book for all readers, but as the culmination of the Dangerous Damsels trilogy that India Holton started with The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels works on pretty much every level for me. Alice Dearlove and Daniel Bixby, whose acquaintance the reader makes briefly in The League of Gentlewomen Witches get their own novel and a chance at their own HEA, since clearly from their first meeting in the previous novel, they are perfect for one another. 

Both found in orphanages by A.U.N.T and raised under the strict tutelage of the organisation's teachers and trainers to become secret agents for the crown, neither Alice nor Daniel have ever really felt like they fit in among their fellow spies or people in general. It's quite clear from the description of them,  and their reactions to and thoughts about certain things, that they are both neurodivergent, and while this is not something likely to have been acknowledged in Victorian times, be they the real ones or the alternate history one we meet here, it's nevertheless a fact and makes them both excellent at their jobs, but not very good at making personal connections. 

Daniel Bixby worked undercover for several years as the butler of charming pirate captain Alex O'Reilly, gathering intel for A.U.N.T and making sure the pirates never caused too much havoc and destruction. He has great difficulty admitting that he and Alex actually became friends and that he cares for both the now-reformed rogue and the witch the pirate fell in love with. 

Alice Dearlove is the perfect ladies' maid and can serve the most infuriating of spoiled aristocrats, devious pirate matrons, or meddling witches. She hasn't really ever had any friends since the organisation doesn't exactly encourage emotional attachment to anything or anyone. She also gets very defensive by light touches and has no understanding of idioms or metaphorical language. Once Daniel discovers this, he's very helpfully tells her "Idiom" every time someone uses figurative language that baffles her. It was a very cute recurring gag and endeared me further to the man.

In various flashbacks, the reader is given insight into the rather dark upbringing both agents have had, in an organisation that doesn't really care for its employees as people, only pawns to move about on a large political gameboard. It helps that they share a lot of the same experiences, albeit in slightly different ways, but it also makes them both very aware of how difficult a potential happy ending would be for them, as A.U.N.T certainly wouldn't let them marry and be together.

Of course, Alice and Daniel, helped in parts by Ned, Cecilia, Alex, and Charlotte, end up with a very lovely HEA in the end. Alice has actual friends who care about her and they're all part of a bigger found family they have dreamed of for their entire lives. This book was a very quick read and made me very happy. India Holton's writing has gotten sharper and wittier with each book, and I'm very excited to see what she will publish next. 

Judging a book by its cover: Once again, it is an adorable cover and I really love the lavender shade of the background. I especially like the traditional spy movie poses of Bixby and Dearlove, with them in period-appropriate servants' attire instead of evening wear. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR15 Books 87-91: "Spy x Family, vol 1-5" by Tatsuya Endo

Total page count: 1040 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Agent Twilight is the best spy in the business and he's willing to do absolutely anything to protect his country. For his latest mission, Operation Strix, he needs to get close to high-ranking politician Desmond Donovan. To do this, he needs to be married and have a child and said child needs to be admitted to the prestigious Eden Academy, where Desmond Donovan's son Damien is a pupil. Agent Twilight creates the alias Loid Forger, a clinical psychiatrist, to complete the mission. Since he has to have a child, he adopts a young girl from an orphanage. The adorable Anya turns out to be a telepath and can read minds. She desperately wants a family and reads Twilight's mind to try to be the perfect daughter to him. Twilight/Loid also requires a wife, and so enters into a marriage of convenience to Yor Briar, seemingly a timid office clerk. Unbeknownst to Twilight, Yor is also a skilled assassin, working under the code name "Thorn Princess". Only Anya knows about the secret identities of her adoptive parents, and neither of them knows she can read their minds. 

In the first volume, Twilight needs to create his Loid Forger persona and acquire the family necessary to pull off his mission. He adopts Anya, who he needs to tutor well enough to pass the entrance exam to Eden Academy. He marries Yor Briar, to have a suitable wife and stepmother to his "daughter". After a lot of shenanigans, they get through the family interview at Eden Academy, but it's unclear whether Anya will actually get accepted.

In volume 2, it becomes clear that Anya has in fact got a spot at the Academy. Twilight/Loid wants her to befriend Damien Desmond, the son of his target, but that really doesn't work out too well. The children pretty much become antagonists, but Anya befriends the wealthy Becky instead. Twilight/Loid is a bit despondent, but being a master spy, doesn't let small obstacles hinder him from achieving success. Yor's younger brother Yuri comes to visit the family and is deeply jealous of anyone taking away his sister's attention from him. Twilight/Loid discovers that Yuri works for the Secret Police.

At the beginning of volume 3, Yor and Twilight/Loid have to work together to convince Yor's brother Yuri that they are a happy couple, and have in fact been married for over a year. Yor asks her co-workers for help to be a better wife, and Twilight/Loid is reassured that despite her brother working for the Secret Police, his wife is not a threat to his mission. Anya manages to earn a Stella star, an important academic achievement at school and tells Twilight/Loid that she wants a dog as a reward.

In volume 4, the Forger family acquires a dog for Anya, the fluffy and courageous Bond, who can occasionally see the future. Bond is part of a gang of dogs trained by terrorists (who also kidnap Anya for a while), but Bond and Anya work together to foil the terrorists, with some assistance from both of Anya's parents.

In volume 5, Yor tries to become a better cook, since her cooking efforts hitherto have been dreadful. Anya manages to help Damian win an art prize at school but is terrified when she realises she will have to sit the midterm during the dark of the moon, the one time of the month when her telepathic powers don't work. Yuri, trying to impress his sister, offers to tutor Anya. Twilight/Loid is prepared to break into the school to alter her results, making sure she passes, but instead runs into another (much more inept spy) who is trying to alter the exam results of the Desmond brothers, making it seem that they would fail. Anya passes her exams, and Twilight/Loid makes sure that the Desmond brothers' results remain unaltered. In the final chapter of the story, we are introduced to Fiona Frost, one of Twilight/Loid's fellow spies. She secretly loves Twilight and wants to scare Yor away, so she (Fiona) can take her place in the mission as Twilight's wife. 

These manga adventures are ridiculously entertaining, and I've had a lot of fun reading them since I started this summer. I know there is also an anime series, but since it's a right faff making my VPN work properly so I can watch them, I haven't yet gotten around to watching the show (my BFF Lydia loves it, though). I would love for there to be more actual romance between Twilight/Loid and Yor (everyone knows that marriages of convenience eventually lead to actual love, right?), but these stories are so much fun and I can't wait to see where the story goes next. 

Judging the books by their covers: I really like the art style of this manga, and each volume features one of the characters on the cover. Volume 1 has Agent Twilight/Loid Forger on the cover, volume 2 has Anya, volume 3 has Lor (dressed in her elegant assassin costume), volume 4 has Bond (best doggo!) and volume 5 has Lor's extremely unhealthily attached brother Yuri. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR14 Book 21: "The Sugared Game" by K.J. Charles

Page count: 292 pages

Rating: 4 stars

 

CBR14 Bingo - Shadow (spies and all sorts of murky shenanigans throughout the story)

 

This is book two in a series, and it really doesn't work very well on its own. To start from the beginning, read Slippery Creatures first.

Will Darling has settled more comfortably into his role as a London bookseller but has seen nor heard anything from the mysterious Lord Arthur "Kim" Secretan for several months. He has done his best to forget all about the man and get on with his life, agreeing to take his dressmaker friend Maisie to a nightclub, to dance and drink and forget their troubles. At the club, Will encounters an old army mate, who now works as a waiter after returning from the war. He reveals that not everything is above board at the club, and Will's observations while he's there only confirm the impression. 

It's only after his visit that Kim suddenly appears in his bookshop again, claiming to have stayed away from Will to protect him, but now needing his help to unravel and unmask yet another dangerous conspiracy. Part of Will wants to tell the handsome aristocrat to go to the devil and take his spy plots with him, but another part is pretty thoroughly smitten with both Kim Secretan and the perilous lifestyle he leads, so of course, he agrees to help, keeping the full truth of the investigation from Maisie and Lady Phoebe (Kim's fiancee), at least until the two women find themselves inextricably threatened by sinister forces.

Will is naturally very exasperated and a bit sick of Kim's proclivity for secrecy and double-dealing, but quietly running a bookstore and being a respectable citizen who doesn't end up in fights and break into places in the dead of night is also pretty boring, so when Kim comes knocking, it doesn't take long for Will to agree to help him once more. He has a lot less patience with Kim's secrecy this time around, but once the full truth of the matters Kim has been hiding is revealed, Will can understand why the man has been keeping his card extremely close to his chest, and why he's been worried about endangering others by sharing the secret. 

In Kim's absence, Will's friendship with both Maisie and Lady Phoebe has also further developed and he's come to be very fond of both women, as well as feel deeply protective of them. He thinks it's wonderful that Phoebe wants to go into business with Maisie and give her a chance to take her eye for couture to Paris, yet also worries that interacting too much with the wealthier classes will end in disappointment for his friend. As it happens, the secrets that Kim's keeping this time around very much have a chance to ruin not only Maisie and Phoebe's business plans, but could end up with one or both of them in lethal danger. 

While I found the pacing of this second book somewhat more uneven than that of the first and, like Will, had less patience for Kim's shifty behaviour, in the final third of the book, when everything is revealed (and you understand what Kim has been forced to keep entirely secret, not able to burden anyone with the terrible knowledge he holds) and there's a thrilling race to see how things are going to turn out, I was on the edge of my seat, so to speak, and very excited to see how everything would play out. The actual ending is bittersweet but very realistic. I'm decided a little bit to read the final volume of the series, mainly because I don't want to be done with these characters just yet. However, having now remembered how much I enjoyed the story when writing this review, I suspect book 3 will be moving swiftly to the top of my TBR list. 

Judging a book by its cover: This cover doesn't have me imagining that one of the characters is in a wheelchair, so that's a step up. I like the men in profile, and I very much like the silhouettes of the women at the centre (I'm assuming they're meant to be Maisie and Lady Phoebe). The art deco details are still excellent. Mainly, I find myself annoyed by the huge sideburns on our dude to the right (Will?) Can't tell you why, I just don't like them. 

 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.  

CBR14 Book 18: "Slippery Creatures" by K.J. Charles

Page count: 264 pages

Rating: 4 stars

 

CBR14 Bingo: Snake (SPOILER: being a thoroughly disreputable sort, Kim also turns out to betray Will at least once during the story)

Will Darling has inherited his late uncle's bookshop and is grateful for the fact. After serving in World War I, most of his skills involve killing swiftly and efficiently, not really a commodity on the post-war job markets back in England. Now he just needs to get some idea of all the books actually in the shop and get on with being a bookseller. Then some very shifty people show up and demand that Will give them information, or very bad things might start happening. Will has no idea what information they want, and he certainly doesn't react well to threats.

The thuggish criminals are followed by officious men from the war office, claiming that Will is in possession of secret information and that he'd do well to pass it on to them. Even if he knew what they were talking about, Will isn't in the mood to just be ordered about - it's peacetime now, and he's done being the obedient soldier. He's puzzled by the threats and demands and sets about going through his uncle's very disordered correspondence to find some clues. He also befriends the charming and handsome Kim Secretan, who offers to help with the search for the mysterious and likely dangerous information. 

As Will and Kim grow closer, it becomes obvious that Kim is more than he seems at first, not to mention that there is a mutual attraction between them. Their search for answers uncovers secrets that could mean very real danger for tens of thousands of people, and Will is determined to keep it out of the hands of the criminals. Will's friendship with occasional benefits with Kim comes to a halt as he discovers that the attractive man has betrayed him. He wants nothing more to do with the man, but might not have a choice when he finds himself chloroformed and abducted to a remote house in the country. 

I've seen so many positive write-ups of K.J. Charles' Will Darling Adventures and this summer, I was determined to finally get through the series. Slippery Creatures is the first in a trilogy, with the working class Will Darling as one of our protagonists and the aristocratic Kim Secretan (what a great name for a man who's so full of secrets) as the second. There is a developing romance, secrets, organised crime, violent thugs, officious government agents, any number of dusty books that might hide vital information, kidnapping, loyal supporting characters and more. 

I really liked that Charles has set her books in the post World War I-era, not a time period where you find as many historical romances or mysteries. Will is rather adrift after serving on the battlefields in France for four years, and finding his feet in the new post-war world would be challenging for anyone, even if there weren't sinister thugs and government types badgering you for information you're not even sure exists, or if it does, where in the thousands of books in your store it may be hidden. It's no wonder he turns to the genial, charming, handsome and very helpful Kim, who of course has his own agenda.

I really like both Will and Kim as characters, for all that Kim is a bit of a snake. I love Maisie, Will's seamstress friend from Wales, and lady Phoebe, Kim's bubbly and incredibly friendly fiancee. This was a fast-paced and exciting book, with a very promising developing romance. There is no HEA or even really a HFN, but since this is the first of a trilogy, I wasn't really expecting it. I'm sure that all will be resolved by the end of book three.

Judging a book by its cover: I'm really sure if it's just me, but every time I look at this, even thought I know that Will is just sitting on a regular chair, my brain insists, just for a fraction of a second, as seeing it as a wheelchair. Which is a bit odd, no? I think it's because of the dagger, the metal of it makes me want to think it's a wheel. Apart from that, cracking cover design. 

 

Crossposted by Cannonball Read. 

#CBR13 Book 4: "Big Bad Wolf" by Suleikha Snyder

Page count: 320 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer! I got an ARC from NetGalley. That has in no way influenced my review.

In a dystopian alternate reality, where the 2016 election led to the USA becoming a tightly regulated surveillance state, pretty much at the same time as the existence of a number of supernatural beings were revealed, several big cities, including New York, are now a Sanctuary City for supernaturals. 

Joe Peluso, an ex-soldier turned werewolf through military experimentation, is in prison for murdering six bear shifters with ties to the Russian mafia. His legal team is determined to give him a proper defense, but Joe believes himself beyond redemption. He has no regrets about the murders that landed him in prison, which were in retaliation for the death of his foster brother. However, he is haunted by his years as a soldier and all the lives he ended during his long military career. He has no intention of sharing any information or revealing anything to his lawyers that might help him get a lighter sentence and fully expects to be killed in prison by Russian mobsters soon enough.

Neha Ahluwalia, one of the lawyers on his team, as well as a trained psychologist, believes that everyone deserves a chance. She can't really explain her near-instant attraction to Peluso, which just seems to grow with each of their meetings. Falling for one of their clients, let alone a werewolf with a long history of violence is utter madness, but Neha can't stay away. On the day of Joe's trial, she agrees to a brief meeting alone with him, and they end up going on the run together after the Russian mob attempts to kill Joe and creates chaos at the courthouse. While he might not see himself as worthy of love or affection, Neha has caught glimpses of the wounded and vulnerable man behind the gruff facade, and she's determined to fight for their happy ending. 

I had hoped to have this review finished by the book's release date last week, but my depression had other ideas, and quite a lot of the things I wanted to achieve have had to be postponed. My friend and fellow Cannonball reviewer Emmalita reviewed this back in December (and has already used one of my favourite lines from the book as her review title and made me very excited to get to this. I've only ever read Ms. Snyder's contemporary romance novella Tikka Chance on Me, so seeing her take on urban fantasy/paranormal romance was interesting and quite different. 

There's a lot to like in this book, including the two main characters. I adored pretty much everything about Neha, including how completely unapologetic she was about was about embracing her desires once she admitted to herself that she fancied the pants off Joe. I could have done with a lot less self pitying, recriminations and angst from Joe (I have never had much patience with the oh woe is me, I'm so dark and unlovable because of my past dudes), but I guess feeling constantly guilty and not worthy of a wonderful lady like Neha is better than being an unapologetic sociopath who's full of himself. 

It's quite clear that as well as the central romance between Neha and Joe, this book is setting up the wider world in which the Third Watch, the secret agency staffed by both humans and paranormals who end up helping our protagonsists on the run. There's a whole host of supporting characters, including an incredibly charming and very scene-stealing vampire, as well as a no nonsense surgeon, both of whom I hope feature in future books. There's a really nice focus on friendship and community thoughout the book and while I have a few niggles about the book as a romance (everything happens VERY fast between Neha and Joe - I would have liked a bit more time for them to get to know each other before declaring eternal love), I loved this as the start of a new paranormal fantasy series full of competence porn, great world building and interesting characters.

As far as I can tell from Ms. Snyder's Twitter, this series will be at least a trilogy. I can't wait to get my hands on more. 

Judging a book by its cover: I absolutely see what the cover designer was trying to do here, but I'm not sure it entirely works.While I totally get that showing that just underneath the surface of our hero lurks a big, dangerous wolf, the actual effect of having two big yellow wolf eyes basically looking out at you from the torso of the muscular and very fit cover model is more distracting than enticing. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR9 Book 123: "For Your Arms Only" by Caroline Linden

Page count: 388 pages
Rating: 2 stars

Alexander Hayes fought bravely during the Napoleonic war and achieved the rank of Major. During the battle of Waterloo, he was gravely injured and nearly died. When he, some weeks later, managed to get back to rejoin his fellow soldiers, he discovered that not only had one of his childhood friends died during the battle, but that he was being accused of treason. In absolute disgrace, he lets his family continue to believe that he died, and goes to work as a spy for England, in the hopes of eventually being able to clear his name.

Now, five years later, he is sent to locate a soldier whose gone missing from his former home town. He needs to come clean to his family about having been alive all these years, without being able to tell them the truth about where he's been or why he never contacted them. He also discovers that the soldier's youngest daughter, Miss Cressida Turner, is deeply distrustful of strangers, and just as likely to shoot him as aid him in his search. Once Cressida realises just in what dire straits her missing father left her, her widowed sister and aged grandmother in, she has no choice but to join forces with the mysterious possible traitor, as her family will be destitute and homeless if her father is not located soon.

A View to a Kiss, the first book in this trilogy, was a fairly slow and rather uneventful book, despite having a spy as a main character and several others as part of the supporting cast. As it had the rather unusual premise of a noblewoman falling for a commoner, I gave it the benefit of the doubt and rated it higher than I possibly should have. It does, however, mean that I'm not so generous with my rating of this second book, starring Alex Hayes/Alec Brandon, one of the supporting spies of book one, as this one is if possible even less exciting than the first one, and here there is no creative turning on its head of common tropes.

Our hero is worried about returning to his home town, and the only one who seems truly happy to see him is his mother, who doesn't seem to care why her youngest son is alive but hasn't been in contact for five long years. One of the reasons Alex is told by his superiors that he should return home (in addition to the mission) is that his older brother passed away a while back, so he is now the heir to the estate. His younger sister Julia is deeply hurt (very understandably so) and his cousin, who believed himself to be the heir and who has dutifully taken care of everything since his brother's death, must be some kind of saint, as he doesn't protest even a little bit to have his believed inheritance suddenly snatched away. For a while, I believed he may turn out to be part of whatever villainous plot had made Papa Turner disappear (because there was going to be some sort of plot, right?), but SPOILER - he turns out to be totally legit and just goes back to being a nice person somewhere else.

So the plot of this novel, such as it is, involves Alex trying to locate Turner the elder (I do not remember what military rank he was, and I don't care enough to look it up). The first time he runs into Cressida is when he's snooping in the Turner family's stables, and Cressida shows up and pulls a gun on him. She thinks he's handsome and is impressed that he doesn't seem even vaguely intimidated by her (he's a trained soldier, lady, he fought in the war. A slip of a girl with a gun isn't actually much of a threat to him). Her father has been missing for almost two months, and what little money the womenfolk he left behind had, is rapidly running out. While it seems to be pretty common practise for Papa Turner to go off for weeks or the occasional month, he always returns, flush with cash and expects his mother and two daughters to be pleased. He's never been gone two months without word before, and Cressida is getting worried.

After some joint snooping, Cressida and Alex manage to find Papa Turner's journal, which is written in code. Cressida, it seems, has always had a knack for decrypting things and sets about trying to decode the journal, in the hopes that they will find her father that way. I wish I can say they go on lots of exciting search missions, but nope, that is not the case. There's mainly a whole lot of nothing happening for much of the book.

There's a secondary romance subplot involving Cressida's widowed sister and one of their loyal family retainers, who has apparently loved her faithfully since before she got married to the scumbag she is now widowed from. There's their grandmother, who is clearly going senile, and only sees the good in her clearly disreputable son (who does NOT seem like he was a very good father), convinced he will show up any second now. Alex' sister Julia keeps being surly because he won't tell her anything of importance, and she's worried he did in fact commit treason all those years ago.

After three quarters of a book of really nothing much happening at all, there is suddenly a big, over the top action-packed finale, when they discover the truth behind Papa Turner's disappearance (which coincidentally, and very conveniently) turns out to be related to Alex' being accused of treason after Waterloo. Suddenly there's nefarious villains, and people being manhandled and threatened and there's danger and destruction and in a book which has pretty much been people pottering about the country side asking questions, or trying to figure out a code in a book, it seems very sudden and badly out of place.

I still have the final volume in this series left to read (curse those e-book sales), but considering how dull this book turned out to be, I'm not exactly going to be rushing to finish it.

Judging a book by its cover: If I recall correctly, the hero of this novel has short blond hair, not some dark and flowy mullet. The heroine is described as much younger than the lady on this cover, with nearly black, straight hair and she seems to dress fairly primly. So I'm assuming the publishing department just found a generic historical romance cover and called it a day, not really bothering with any kind of accuracy.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR9 Book 113: "A View to a Kiss" by Caroline Linden

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

Lady Mariah Dunmore is the daughter of a highly regarded diplomat, and has lived most of her life abroad with her very understanding mother and father. They would like her to find a nice man to marry, but seem perfectly fine with her taking her time and as they have such a good marriage themselves, no problem with her wanting to marry for love. Sadly, Mariah finds all the gentlemen of the London season rather tedious and uninspiring, until she meets a mysterious man in the shadows on the balcony at her parents' ball, who charms her with his boldness and conversation. To her intense frustration, according to her mother (and the extensive guest list), there was no one called "Harry" among the evening's guests.

This is because Harry Sinclair was attending the ball in disguise, working as a spy for the home office. Wearing the guise of the elderly and cranky Lord Worth, his job is to keep an eye on Lady Mariah's father, as the Home Office suspect someone may want to harm him in some way. In the daytime, Harry poses as the lowly secretary for yet another high ranking nobleman involved in politics, mostly transcribing long letters about gardening and horticulture. He's snuck out on the balcony for a break when he comes across Lady Mariah, and although he knows she is far beyond him in every way, can't help but strike up a flirtation with her. While Harry's mother appear to be well-born (but was disowned by her family when she eloped with his father), his father is a retired actor who runs a playhouse. Harry hopes he can make enough connections spying for the Home Office to eventually establish himself in politics, so he can help the many poor and destitute of England.

While they are deeply ill-suited, Harry can't seem to stay away from places where Mariah will be, and soon starts climbing up the trellis outside her bedroom window for midnight meetings with her in her bedroom. He keeps being very secretive about his identity and background, but makes it very clear to her (although not why) that the reason they have to meet all clandestine-like is because her parents would never approve of him. Can the high-born lady and the commoner ever find happiness together, or will Harry be shot for trespassing with Lord Dunmore discovers him in his daughter's bedroom?

For a book purportedly about spies, this book is really very slow and not all that much of an exciting nature happens. There is a brief action sequence in the last third of the book, but I really must admit I had been hoping for a bit more suspense than this book provided. If the hero wasn't a commoner, trying to win the hand of a woman way above his station (which you just don't see very often - a duke can marry a serving maid, or a dressmaker, or even a lowly seamstress, but wealthy ladies don't just marry nobodies), this would be a very solid 3-star book. It may still be, but I really did appreciate a romantic couple a bit outside the norm, even if most of their romance developed because the hero broke into her bedroom - which is probably a bit objectionable in itself (although Lady Mariah does seem pleased as punch about it, and he never takes any liberties that she's not offering up with enthusiasm).

Come to think of it, the lives of low-level spies are probably not all that exciting, and surveillance is probably both tedious and time-consuming. I wasn't necessarily expecting this to be the romance equivalent of a James Bond movie, but there could have been a bit more action and drama. I read romance for escapism - let me get carried away for a bit.

Caroline Linden has written some pretty good romances, this is one of her earlier efforts, and I'm not super excited. Since I have paid money for the entire trilogy, I suspect I'll get round to reading them eventually, but it makes me sad that this is not as entertaining as some of her later books.

Judging a book by its cover: I don't have a whole lot to say about this cover, because it's neither very exciting, nor particularly objectionable. A handsome dude and a lady who are at least partially (but possibly wholly) naked are about to kiss. This is a romance, you should probably expect that sort of thing to be happening. At least by choosing this approach, there is no chance of the outfits being deeply wrong for the period in question.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR9 Book 109: "The Summer of You" by Kate Noble

Page count: 354 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Lady Jane Cummings has been mourning her mother's death for a long time when she's finally allowed back into society. Before she gets much of a chance to enjoy the balls and garden parties, however, her brother Jason returns from his Grand Tour on the Continent and insists that she take their ailing father, the Duke of Rayne north to their summer residence in Merrymere in the Lake District. He's terrified that someone in society will discover that the respected Duke is losing his wits and while Jason's plan involves Jane taking care of it (as she has done since before their mother died), she insists that he has to come with them.

Jane is not happy about having to give up the glamour of London for the backwaters of the Lake District, especially as everyone there has known her since she was little and delights in bringing up the time she was five and ran naked through the town square. She's still grieving her mother and getting increasingly more worried about her father's health, while her irresponsible brother seems mostly content to get drunk at local pubs and leave her to take care of everything. She is intrigued by stories of a reclusive and stand-offish new resident in the area, who may or may not be a highwayman as well. When she discovers that this man rescued her brother from a pub brawl, she goes to thank him, and discovers that she knows who he is. She met Byrne Worth, injured war hero, when he was helping his brother Marcus and Jane's former nemesis Phillipa Benning look for a French spy.

Now he seems content to brood and alienate the locals in a small cottage he inherited from a distant relative. Jane thinks the rumours of Worth being the local highwayman are preposterous, especially since she knows he was in London when some of the crimes were committed and sets out to prove that Mr. Worth is innocent. Soon she's not missing London society much at all, and instead looking forward to every new meeting she can steal with the cranky Mr. Worth.

While this is the second of The Blue Raven books, I actually read it first, hence I discovered a few things about the identity of the infamous Regency spy that made certain plot points in Revealed rather less of a surprise discovery. While the first book in the series has more suspense and is more of an adventure romp, this book was also entertaining, on a smaller scale. What is unusual with this book, compared to most other historical romances I've read, was the large array of points of view we got over the course of the book. In most romances, you tend to get switching POVs from the hero and heroine - here you also get POVs from Jane's brother Jason (who is an immature and selfish idiot), quite a few different villagers (including at a least one of a duo of adolescent scoundrels who run around wreaking havoc as young boys are wont to do). It was a bit strange, and I'm really not sure if it added to or distracted from the main story.

Jane Cummings was Phillipa Benning's main rival in Revealed, but over the course of the story, they found a way to become friends, and this book actually starts with Lady Phillipa's wedding to Marcus Worth. Mostly set in the countryside rather than bustling London, this book has a quieter feel, and while the main plot of Jane and Byrne becoming friends and trying to figure out who is trying to frame him as the local highwayman is fun enough, there is a dark undertone in the story because of the Duke of Rayne's developing dementia, and the heavy responsibilities Jane faces in caring for him and trying to keep the world at large from realising the extent to her father's illness, with little to no help from her oblivious and irresponsible brother, who clearly doesn't want to face up to reality.

Byrne got a gunshot-wound to the leg at the end of the Napoleonic war and tried to manage the pain by drinking copiously or using laudanum. Due to his addiction, he didn't really feel he could help his brother sufficiently and retired to the country to try to wean himself off his cravings and slowly get himself back into shape. On the advice of a local doctor, he's been swimming in the lake daily and while he's still struggling with pain, he's on the way to recovery. He's surprised that he finds such comfort in his conversations with Jane, who he initially believed to be just an air-headed society miss.

With Jane being the daughter of a Duke, while Byrne is a mere baron, their social standings are different enough that their happy ending seems difficult. After the dramatic events at the end of the novel, no one really has any objections to their union. There is also a rather sweet secondary romance in the story, involving one of the local magistrate's daughters, Victoria, who for much of the book harbours a very ill-advised and very much unrequited infatuation with the oafish Jason, not noticing just how perfect the younger of the two local doctors are for her until it's nearly too late.

Judging a book by its cover: It seems that Ms. Noble's publishers were very fond of the Regency lady running through random landscape theme, as all of the three first books of The Blue Raven seem to feature this. While it was quite appropriate with Revealed, there is a lot less running around done by Jane in this book. At least they gave the cover model red hair. That's something.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR9 Book 108: "Revealed" by Kate Noble

Page count: 400 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Lady Phillipa Benning is a young, beautiful, fantastically wealthy widow and the undisputed queen (and Mean Girl) of London society. She has set her eyes on the Marquis of Broughton, who is equally eligible, wealthy and popular, but her arch rival from school, Lady Jane Cummings also seems to have him in her sights and the vexing man is not beyond playing the two ladies against each other. Things start getting complicated after Philippa, having arranged a tryst with Broughton in a library, ends up hidden in a sarcophagus overhearing what appears to be famed English spy The Blue Raven discussing an enemy plot with one of his superiors.

First of all, Philippa is shocked that unassuming and plain Marcus Worth (he doesn't even have a title!) could be the exciting and infamous Blue Raven who helped England defeat France. He's so tall and gawky and wears glasses and always seems too clumsy for his own good. He's nothing like what she would have expected a dashing spy to be (which when she thinks about it is probably why he was so good at it). Philippa's reputation in society is flawless and she gets invited everywhere. She makes a deal with Marcus that at the end of the season, she will be allowed to reveal the identity of the Blue Raven at her big ball in return for securing him entry to all the society events where he suspects the sinister French agent might strike.

Of course, as they continue working with each other, Philippa keeps getting distracted from her pursuit of Broughton (although she skilfully uses Marcus to try to make the other man jealous), finding herself fascinated by this quiet, intelligent and unassuming man and his dangerous mission. Marcus discovers that Philippa isn't just beautiful and cruel, but that she hides a lot from the wider world to maintain her position. She's fiercely intelligent and an excellent organiser and there is pain in her past that she's clearly not willing to talk about. Over the course of their quest to uncover the French spy, he also learns that she seems to have a near-photographic memory, which is very helpful when navigating large crowds.

Revealed pretty much takes the fairly common story of the charming and experienced society rake who falls in love with the plain and intellectual nobody and gender-reverses it. Not that Philippa is really the female equivalent of a rake. While she was previously married, it was not of very long duration and she plays at being a lot more experienced and sophisticated than she is in reality. She's certainly an alpha female, however, and her views and opinions are closely followed by the majority of the ton. Marcus Worth is very much not an alpha male, and while he's initially ready to brush off Philippa as a malicious and self-centred manipulator, he's also very observant and keeps seeing the things she keeps hidden from others. He's fascinated by the woman she could be, if she wasn't so busy dazzling her surrounding and claiming to be indifferent to everything.

I read The Scarlet Pimpernel at an impressionable age, so Regency spies have always held a fascination for me. There is more to the character of the Blue Raven that Philippa first suspects and she comes to discover over the course of her work with Marcus that spying isn't actually very glamorous and adventurous, but involves very real danger to everyone involved. Philippa starts out as really rather horrible and I can see why her personality could put some people off to begin with. To go with the previously mentioned gender reversal, it's nice to see that the heroine can be complex and a bit of a dick, only to be gradually changed and redeemed by falling for someone unexpected. Marcus is tall, bookish, gangly, bespectacled and has unruly hair - that's pretty much my ideal man. He struggles to convince his superiors that there really is a plot to watch out for. They believe him to be overly paranoid and just bored with his post-War desk duty (hence him having to ally with Philippa). Together, they make a very effective team, and they obviously fall in love along the way.

I've only read a few other Kate Noble romances (including book 4 in The Blue Raven series). Neither of them very very memorable and I was glad to discover that this was so much more entertaining and fun.

Judging a book by its cover: The cover is fairly generic for a Regency novel, but I will give the cover designer kudos for using a period appropriate dress (which is sadly so often not the case). As there is quite a bit of running around in gardens, the lady running either from or towards something is a suitable image, I guess, and the dress is fashionable enough to be something Lady Phillipa would wear.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR9 Book 80: "Beauty Like the Night" by Joanna Bourne

Page count: 336 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Sèverine de Cabriallac was orphaned during the French Revolution and adopted by one of the foremost British intelligence agents, William Doyle. Her whole childhood was spent being raised, taught or entertained by various spies. During a youthful rebellion, Sèvie ran off to Spain and joined British Military Intelligence. She was in love with a French soldier, who died. No longer really interested in the spying game so many of her family are involved in, she works as a private investigator instead. One memorable night, a mysterious stranger appears in the bedroom of the inn she is visiting, brandishing a knife. He asks about a missing young girl and a stolen amulet, and seems to think Sèverine may know the whereabouts of both.

Despite the dire warnings of both her adoptive father and her brother-in-law, Adrian Hawkhurst, currently head of British Intelligence, Sèvie is intrigued enough to take the case offered by the enigmatic Raoul Deverney. He wants to find out who murdered his wife, stole the amulet that is a Deverney heirloom, and finally where his wife's (not his) daughter is. He claims that he and Sèverine have met before, many years ago in Spain, but Sèvie has no recollection of this. Raul is not entirely sure the legendary young woman isn't involved in the death of his estranged wife, but he figures she is his best way of tracking down the murderers and achieving justice.

As well as trying to track down murderers and a missing adolescent, Sèverine is helping her family foil a rumoured assassination attempt on the Duke of Wellington. Initially, it seems the cases couldn't possibly be connected, but as Sèvie's investigation continues and the pieces keep falling into place, the same individuals may be responsible for both.

This is one of the more low-key of Joanna Bourne's Spymaster books. While quite a lot of the previous novels take place during or in the immediate aftermath of the Napoleonic war, this one is set in the Regency era, after the various battles have taken place. Some of the book flashes back to Sèverine's spying career in war-torn Spain, where we find out how her and Raoul's paths first crossed. As is always the case in a Bourne novel, the protagonists are very well matched. Both have dark pasts filled with things they're not necessarily proud of. Both are extremely intelligent, observant and capable people, who find it hard to easily give their trust to someone else, because they've learned the hard way how easily such trust can be betrayed.

Sèverine was an excellent spy, having been raised in the craft as a child. She's also a diligent and efficient investigator, doing her best to help her clients in any way she can. She will occasionally help her family in matters of national security, because she cares about them, and while she doesn't want to actively spy, she enjoys the occasional mission. Raoul is also very good at what he does, which is rather more than being the wine merchant he openly claims to be. His marriage was one forced upon him and he never loved the woman, but feels he needs to bring her killers to justice both as a matter of family honour and to reclaim the family amulet. He is adamant that her young daughter is no real concern of his, but as he discovers just how badly the girl was neglected and mistreated and how much of the funds he sent to his wife for her upkeep were squandered, he begins to feel profoundly guilty about his own carelessness and ignorance of her situation.

The couple try to fight their mutual attraction for a long time, knowing it would be a very inconvenient thing for them to get romantically involved. Neither of them are looking to ever settle down with someone, yet they are so obviously made for one another. While there is a fair amount of unresolved sexual tension, there really isn't a lot in the way of love scenes, so anyone wanting more of that might have to look elsewhere. I don't know if Bourne is planning any more books in her Spymasters series, but if this is the final one, it's a very good conclusion to a very enjoyable set of novels. This book works as a stand-alone, but will probably be more emotionally satisfying if you've read some of the previous ones and know the supporting characters and their backstories better.

Judging a book by its cover: Now this is a beautiful cover. I love the use of colours, with the blue background and the red leaves in the corners. The cover model looks a lot like Sèverine is described, up to and including the red evening gown she wears in a very significant scene. I wish more historical romances had covers like this.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR9 Book 73: "An Extraordinary Union" by Alyssa Cole

Page count: 320 pages
Rating: 4 stars

From Goodreads:

Elle Burns is a former slave with a passion for justice and an eidetic memory. Trading in her life of freedom in Massachusetts, she returns to the indignity of slavery in the South - to spy for the Union Army. 

Malcolm McCall is a detective for Pinkerton's Secret Service. Subterfuge is his calling, but he's facing his deadliest mission yet - risking his life to infiltrate a Rebel enclave in Virginia.

Two undercover agents who share a common cause - and an undeniable attraction - Malcolm and Elle join forces when they discover a plot that could turn the tide of war in the Confederacy's favour. Caught in a tightening web of wartime intrigue, and fighting a fiery and forbidden love, Malcolm and Elle must make their boldest move to preserve the Union at any cost - even if it means losing each other...

Elle Burns is the daughter of slaves and can even remember the slavery of her childhood, before her parents' master's son freed them when he inherited. She may be young and female, but she has a gift that can provide invaluable help to the Union cause - her eidetic, or photographic memory. Able to recount with perfect recall anything she has read or overheard, she's the ideal spy. She is rather hot-tempered, though, which is why her current mission involves her posing in a newly elected Confederate senator's household as a mute slave. Her superiors hope that can keep her from exploding and risking the mission. Working undercover in Richmond, Virginia, she hopes to overhear plans that may help the Union cause and hopefully end the Civil War faster.

Malcolm McCall is the son of poor Scottish immigrants, and while he may be white, he remembers all too well the hardships his family suffered in their homeland before his family emigrated. His parents marriage suffered because of some of the horrors inflicted on his mother by British soldiers, his father could never entirely get over it and was pretty much driven mad. Determined to ensure that there is no such oppression and mistreatment of people in his new homeland, he is an avid supporter of the Abolitionist cause and proudly serves the Union and President Lincoln by working for the Pinkerton Secret Service. Posing as a decorated Confederate soldier, he charms his way as a favoured guest into Senator Caffrey's household and tries to learn as many secrets as possible to report back to his superiors.

He's somewhat taken aback to discover that the pretty slave he saw abused by the spoiled young Miss Caffrey earlier in the day is apparently his contact, and that she's not mute or in any way slow, rather the opposite. While Elle is naturally quite wary of the strange soldier she is asked to cooperate with, Malcolm seems pretty instantly infatuated with Elle, and his attraction only increases when he learns just how intelligent and talented she is. Even though they both work for the Union, the couple are both very aware that an inter-racial marriage would be impossible and forbidden, even if they survive their dangerous mission.

Elle is used to people around her being initially rather impressed with her memory, but usually they either seem jealous that such a gift is bestowed on a black woman, or they feel threatened and slightly put off by it. Daniel, her former best friend and erstwhile suitor, seemed intimidated by it and certainly didn't want her to use her abilities to spy for the Union. Now he's been taken prisoner by slavers, and one of Elle's hopes while working as a spy is to discover his whereabouts in the South to see if she can help get him freed. She's surprised when Malcolm is neither upset, threatened or intimidated by her recall, but seems even more attracted to her because of it. As they get to know each other better, he also comes to see what a burden it must be for Elle to perfectly remember absolutely everything she's ever read or heard - she can't really selectively overhear bad or horrible things.

This book was one of those releases that I've seen raved about practically everywhere that reviews romance on the internet. It may have raised my expectations too high, because while I liked the book, it certainly didn't exactly blow me away, and I thought the romance developed very fast and became intense extremely quickly, considering the brief timeline the novel takes place over. Especially considering the racial and political difficulties facing the couple, Elle's misgivings are brushed away in no time at all. Also, it's clear that Malcolm needs to be very open-minded, but he seemed almost anachronistically understanding and a bit too modern in his attitudes throughout the story.

I did like that over the course of the novel, it's clear that each of the protagonists have their strengths and while they are good apart, they're even better together. They also both get a chance to rescue the other out of some pretty dire straits. Thinking back, I think the ending may have been a bit sudden and certain bits were a little bit too convenient to be entirely realistic. I appreciate reading a romance from a different time period than I usually do, though, and it's quite clear that Ms. Cole has done her research well. This is the first book in a series, and I'm sure I'll be reading more of these.

Judging a book by its cover: I've seen this cover highlighted in a number of places as a very good one, and I agree that it's nice-looking, I have doubts that a house slave (like Elle is posing as) would be allowed such a nice dress. It really seems too delicate and pretty for that. I do really like the background details and the pose and posture of the woman on the cover. She looks competent, but wary and on guard, which seems very suitable for this book.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR9 Book 62: "Mr and Mr Smith" by HelenKay Dimon

Page count: 210 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

From Goodreads:
Fisher Braun knows how to keep a secret. As a covert paramilitary operative, his job - and his life - depends on it. He's at the top of his game, ready for action and always in control. No enemy has ever brought him to his knees, but one lover has: Zachary Allen, the man currently sharing his bed. The perfect package of brains and brawn, Zach is someone worth coming home to, and Fisher hates keeping him in the dark about what he does. But the lies keep Zach safe. Until the day Fisher loses everything...

Zachary Allen is no innocent civilian. Although he plays a tech geek, in reality he's deep undercover for the CIA. In a horrible twist of face, the criminal enterprise he's infiltrated has set its sights on the man whose touch drives him wild. Zach would do anything for Fisher - except blow his own cover. Now, in order to save him, Zach must betray him first. And he needs Fisher to trust him with all his heart if they want to make it out alive. 

This is the first book I've ever read by HelenKay Dimon, so I can't tell you if it's a typical book for her, or some new and exciting direction she's taking her fiction in. A quick glance at Goodreads shows me that she has written quite a lot of books that all seem to be romantic suspense, some with a m/f and others with m/m focus. In this series, Tough Love, we are introduced to a team of CIA agents, who have clearly worked together for many missions on various paramilitary missions all over the globe. They're a tight-knit and experienced unit, who clearly know each other very well, but Fisher has been hiding the fact that he's gay, and has had a boyfriend hidden away in an apartment for the las few months, from the rest of the group. He's been lying to his boyfriend, claiming to be an engineer, making up excuses every time he gets shipped off to do something insanely dangerous to keep the world safe.

Now his boyfriend appears to have been kidnapped, and Fisher is absolutely frantic. He believes his boyfriend Zach to be a nerdy computer technician and has always feared that his life of spying and covert ops will endanger Zach in some way. Finding him snatched from their home pretty much confirms this. Fisher's partner, Nathan, is rather amused at Fisher's admission that he's gay, as it seems to have been blatantly obvious to the entire team that Fisher had no interest in the ladies. He's more curious as to why Fisher's been lying both about where he's been living for the last three months, and whom he's been living with. He insists on coming with Fisher to confront the kidnappers, who turn out to be a pretty nasty bunch of individuals, and while captive with that organisation, they discover that Zach isn't so much a kidnapping victim as someone who's job it was to hit on Fisher and insinuate himself into his life so he could spy on him for the group.

Fisher is absolutely gutted, and it takes both Fisher and Nathan a long time to believe that Zach is telling the truth about being an undercover CIA agent tasked to infiltrate these high-level kidnappers. Even after Zach's identity has been verified both by the Fisher and Zach's respective supervisors, Fisher feels incredibly betrayed. He believed Zach to be an innocent civilian, and now can't trust anything they had together. Having already dealt with his fair share of betrayal and rejection when he came out to his family, Fisher has always kept himself slightly apart from others, not really daring to trust. Although he's not ready to admit it to himself, he's clearly fallen pretty hard for Zach (everyone else around him can see it) and now he doesn't know what to do with himself.

When helping Fisher and Nathan escape, Zach knows that he most likely broke his cover, but the ruthless organisation he's been infiltrating still needs to be stopped, and he has to return to them, even if it means risking his own life. While Fisher is furious with him, and claims he doesn't care what happens to Zach, he's clearly in denial and needs to be convinced that his superiors, and Zach, know what they're doing.

We are thrown straight into the action in this book, and it very rarely lets up at any point. I suppose in a book of just two hundred pages, you don't really have a lot of pages to spend on slowly building exposition, but it felt a bit jarring occasionally to have everything revealed in little flashbacks while the main story was going ahead at full tilt. I didn't really feel like I was able to get invested in Fisher and Zach's relationship before it was in danger of crumbling. Even with the tight plotting and low page count, Dimon manages to spend some time introducing sequel-bait, a German secret agent also working undercover with the kidnappers and the youngest, apparently less-criminally inclined than his siblings brother of the criminal enterprise. In many ways, their pairing seemed more interesting to me, so Ms. Dimon's tactics clearly worked, I'm very likely to track down the next book in the series as well.

All in all, I would have preferred a few more quiet scenes and a bit more exposition, where I felt like I really got to know Fisher and Zach and therefore could care more about their relationship. I also found at least one of the sex scenes in the book somewhat implausible, considering both the anger and trust issues on either side and the time constraints with regards to the guys' mission, but what do I know? It seemed like at least one of the scenes was in there so the readers got enough smexy times, without it really feeling organic to the plot.

This hasn't exactly been my favourite read of the season, but I am a fan of action movies, and they're not always very big on character development either. So since this is a big budget action movie in romance form, I guess I can't be too picky. Several of Fisher's team members provide excellent comic relief as supporting characters, and as I said, I am very intrigued by the pairing set up for the sequel, so this will clearly not be the last HelenKay Dimon book I read. If you like romantic suspense, and don't really want anything too time-consuming to read, I suspect this will do you nicely.

Judging a book by its cover: I really don't think much of this cover, where they've clearly just found some random male models and posed them casually. These men don't in any way look like convincing secret agents or former soldiers. They just look like they're fighting constipation or pondering how to turn left. While they're not both exactly doing Blue Steel, there are some heavy Zoolander vibes here.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR9 Book 28: "Captives of the Night" by Loretta Chase

Page count: 352 pages
Audio book length: 13hrs 8mins
Rating: 5 stars

Leila Beaumont is a beautiful and very talented portrait artist, as celebrated throughout Europe as her husband, Francis, is becoming reviled. While Leila is aware of Francis adultery, his tendency to drink and take drugs to excess, she is unaware that he also ran a brothel in Paris and tended to make money through the blackmail of prominent members of society. While she hasn't allowed him in her bed for years, Leila is nonetheless grateful to Francis for rescuing her when she was orphaned in Venice ten years ago, after her traitor father ran afoul of some people he betrayed. While Francis later seduced her, he also married her and made sure she got training with the best artists, allowing her to have the career she now thrives in. Their marriage is not a peaceful one, however, which is why Leila is the prime suspect when Francis turns up dead.

Even Alexandre Delavenne, the Comte D'Esmond, initially believes that Leila murdered her husband. He first met and was enchanted with the beautiful artist in Paris, but while Francis normally cared little for all the men fawning over his wife, knowing that his constant digs at her and his own behaviour had pretty much put Leila off men entirely, he was extremely jealous about D'Esmond's attentions towards her. That this was because he himself also fancied the man, and was firmly rebuffed is not something Leila was aware of. She just knows that the very beautiful man made her uneasy in Paris and now again in London, when the world seems ready to call her a murderess. D'Esmond works for the Home Office, however, and orchestrates a beautiful show of an inquest, where there is left no doubt to anyone that Francis Beaumont died of an accidental overdose.

Once the public's mind has been set at ease about Beaumont's death, D'Esmond's superiors at the Home Office nonetheless want to figure out who actually killed him, and set D'Esmond to investigate the crime. This means he and Leila have to spend a lot of time together, reluctantly fighting their growing attraction towards one another. D'Esmond may have been working for the Home Office as an agent for the last ten years, but there are dark deeds in his past, and he realises that some of them affected Leila indirectly. Even as he wants to seduce her and win her love, he is terrified that the intelligent and dangerously perceptive woman will figure out the secrets of his past, and how he may have been the person to set her on the path to her disastrous marriage to Francis in the first place.

This book, while one of my all-time favourites, is probably not for everyone. There is too much of a mystery element to the story and the romance is probably the most angst-filled of all of Chase's books. The Comte D'Esmond is actually the villain in Chase's earlier novel, The Lion's Daughter, where as a ruthless Albanian prince, he not only tries to usurp his cousin, the Pasha, but becomes obsessed with the daughter of an English nobleman and chases her and the man she loves across Europe, intent on stealing her back. Ismal Delvina, as he was then, is stopped and nearly dies and takes up a career with the Home Office to atone for his sins, but he was not a nice individual and in his wild chase across Europe, he also stopped in Venice to demand money from Leila's father, who shortly afterwards ended up drowned in a canal. While he never saw Leila in person, he knew her father, Bridgeburton, had a child, and commanded his henchmen to drug her while they were doing business. Leila woke up groggy and disorientated in the carriage of Francis Beaumont, who claimed he had rescued her from burglars, breaking the news of her father's death to her.

While Leila is completely unaware of this, once it's revealed to Ismal/D'Esmond that she is Bridgeburton's daughter, he is painfully conscious of the fact that his former actions led to her being in the clutches of Francis Beaumont, an innocent and sheltered girl, who was easily seduced by him and later shackled in marriage to him for the next decade. For all that she's not had a great marriage and is aware of many of her husband's flaws, Leila refuses to see herself as a victim and is grateful to her husband for making her the artist she now is. It takes her a long time to realise just how insidious and toxic his influence over her has been, and how many insecurities and hang-ups she harbours, all placed there carefully by her husband, to ensure that while she may not be allowing him into her bed, she certainly wasn't going to sleep with and experience pleasure with anyone else either. Leila is so strong and smart, yet so wounded and vulnerable and the process she has to go through in this book is rather painful to read about in parts.

Ismal/D'Esmond has long since gotten over the woman he chased across Europe, who has been happily married for the last decade. Leila is probably the first woman to fascinate him as much, yet he is painfully aware at all times that the secrets he harbours will hurt her when they come to light. That she is frighteningly perceptive and sees things in him that others don't appear to doesn't help. He is in love with her long before he's able to finally break through the layers of conditioning that make her think sex is something rather repellent and allowed access into her bed. He knows that when she finds out the truth (and he has no illusions that she won't eventually figure things out), she will be deeply hurt and possibly ask him to leave her forever.

Seriously, this is a really angsty book with very complex and wounded people. Once Ismal/D'Esmond finally manages to seduce Leila, we're about 70% into the book (although they seem to make up for lost time once they get started), so for much of the book there is just a fairly complicated and somewhat tiresome murder investigation (even the protagonists admit that this mystery is tedious), with the couple learing more about one another as they question and investigate others. Francis Beaumont is an absolutely odious individual, so there are MANY people with a will and motive to murder him. He was a master manipulator, and it takes Leila a long time to realise and deal with the ways he messed her up.

Anyone looking for a light-hearted and amusing romp, would be much better off checking out Mr. Impossible or The Last Hellion, or reading something in Tessa Dare's Spindle Cove or Castles Ever After series. This is not an easy or comfortable book, but the romance feels so much more earned at the end because of it. It should also be pointed out, for those readers who are sick of "pregnancy epilogues" - Leila is barren and can't have children, and there is a frank and very touching discussion about adoption in the later half of the book.

A final note - I listened to this in audio book this time around, and as with the other Loretta Chase historicals, it's narrated by the excellent Kate Reading. She is especially good at accents and the way she changes the voice and accent of D'Esmond/Ismal once he reveals his background and true identity to Leila is really well done.

Judging a book by its cover: My paperback cover of this has a blond dude with stubble looking out from behind a curtain. I refuse to believe it's supposed to be Ismal/D'Esmond, but refuse to acknowledge this, as he's described several times in the book as the most beautiful man anyone has ever seen, and the slightly scruffy surfer dude on the cover clearly doesn't fit that. The audio book cover is this underwear-clad red-head, where I always get more distracted by the beautiful blue brocade wallpaper than the woman. Not sure if that was entirely the effect the cover designers were looking for.

Crossposted by Cannonball Read.