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a_ab's review
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
I have mixed feelings about this book: it was both better and worse than I had expected.
I wanted to try this new to me author, and this was the only book of hers available at my library, so I decided to disregard the series order. Thus, I might be missing some context, but this story stood well enough on its own, so I didn't feel like I was missing much.
I was surprised to like the relationships described here more than I expected I would. However, both the relationships and the book as a whole felt very dated to the historical romance interpretations of the 1990's. I would find it hard to point out exactly why, but I couldn't shake that feeling. The ever-forgiving all-understanding nature of the heroine(s)? The overwrought emotional situations? The basic almost simplistic characterizations and situations? The narrative use and descriptions of sex? Probably all of the above.
Speaking of sex: I still found there to be too much of it, but at least it served the story here (and not the other way around), which was a welcome surprise.
I also appreciated the whole spy aspect to be both low key and low stakes - without the ubiquitous and much-dreaded peril for the heroine followed by the heroic rescue by the hero. Given how 90's the whole book was, I thought this peril-rescue nonsense to be an inevitability, but the story very pleasantly surprised me in that respect.
So it's a net positive result - so much so that I might find this book rereadable and would want to try more from this author.
P.S. The title did this book a huge disservice - it's so generic bland and off-putting that it made me initially dismiss this author completely. I only picked this up based on the recommendation to try this author, and still had a hard time suppressing my aversion to the title in order to finally give this a try.
I wanted to try this new to me author, and this was the only book of hers available at my library, so I decided to disregard the series order. Thus, I might be missing some context, but this story stood well enough on its own, so I didn't feel like I was missing much.
I was surprised to like the relationships described here more than I expected I would. However, both the relationships and the book as a whole felt very dated to the historical romance interpretations of the 1990's. I would find it hard to point out exactly why, but I couldn't shake that feeling. The ever-forgiving all-understanding nature of the heroine(s)? The overwrought emotional situations? The basic almost simplistic characterizations and situations? The narrative use and descriptions of sex? Probably all of the above.
Speaking of sex: I still found there to be too much of it, but at least it served the story here (and not the other way around), which was a welcome surprise.
I also appreciated the whole spy aspect to be both low key and low stakes - without the ubiquitous and much-dreaded peril for the heroine followed by the heroic rescue by the hero. Given how 90's the whole book was, I thought this peril-rescue nonsense to be an inevitability, but the story very pleasantly surprised me in that respect.
So it's a net positive result - so much so that I might find this book rereadable and would want to try more from this author.
P.S. The title did this book a huge disservice - it's so generic bland and off-putting that it made me initially dismiss this author completely. I only picked this up based on the recommendation to try this author, and still had a hard time suppressing my aversion to the title in order to finally give this a try.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Sexual content, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Murder, Child abuse, and Emotional abuse
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