A review by kali76
The Essence of Malice by Ashley Weaver

3.0

The fourth in the Amory Ames cosy mystery series, which has seen many ups and downs in her marriage to rakish Milo. Unfortunately, I find it difficult to continue caring about poor Amory, hoping for Milo to support her and love her as she deserves, after this novel set in Paris. For much of the book I wanted Amory to punch him in the face for keeping secrets from her “for her own protection”, even when she called him out on his behaviour. There’s some back story as to why he is close-guarded with his feelings and for his chauvinistic need (though historically apt) to protect the women in his life. However, I just felt that Amory had to do too much emotional lifting because of “the way he is”. I’m over stories where women save or absolve emotionally broken men. Milo’s sexy charms seem to make Amory forgive him for endangering her life and his deliberate obfuscations that meant she wasted a lot of effort on investigating red herrings.