I love spy stories and I love Cinderella stories, so this one should have been a perfect read for me. However, the mix of romance and action wasn’t totally successful in Cinderella and the Spy. And yet, even though the blending of a love story and an action plot didn’t work as well here as in other novels by the same author, the love story between the two main characters is strong enough to compensate for, at least in part, the lack of action in Tyler Hayes’ latest series romance.

Amanda Wainwright has spent the last year trying to heal from a betrayal of the worst kind. Her fiance turned out to be a traitor to his country and used Amanda for information. He also jeopardized her job; who would believe she didn’t know what her fiancé was up to? Joshua Carter, a smooth, handsome superspy, who feels badly for Amanda. He’d been attracted to her before the trouble with her fiance, but left her alone. Now that it’s been a year since Amanda’s betrayal, Josh has decided to act on his attraction.

Amanda was a wishy-washy heroine for too much of the book. She was vulnerable and had a hard time trusting people, which was totally understandable – after such a betrayal, who wouldn’t be wary? It’s equally understandable why she had a hard time accepting Josh’s attraction to her. After all, Amanda thought she was plain and out of his league. However, Amanda’s wavering back and forth in her trust of Josh was frustrating, at least until she finally made up her mind. Then she became a woman to be reckoned with.

Then there’s Josh. What to say about him? How about – Yum! Handsome, charming, and confident, he’s the kind of man whose attention makes a woman feel unbelievably special. I loved the way he showered Amanda with attention and how he confidently pursued her.

There was definite chemistry between Josh and Amanda. There was such an attraction between them, I had a hard time rating this book warm instead of hot. Each encounter between them was better than the last. Where I was disappointed, though, was the consummation. The time and place chosen for it seemed more than a little innoportune. And Josh’s reason for consummating the relationship when he did seemed a tad farfetched. To say more about his reasons for finally giving in would be a spoiler, but it really pulled me out of the moment.

As alluded to earlier, the suspense sub-plot wrapped up too quickly and left me feeling shortchanged. One of the reasons I like spy novels is the action, and I wanted more of it here, althought I did like like the fact that Josh decided not to try any superman heroics towards the end. That really made him seem like he knew what he was doing.

Overall, this wasn’t a bad read. But in a longer book with more space to flesh out the suspense, it would have been even better. It was also nice to see Dan and Jamie from the first book in this series Dangerous to Love. I will definitely pick up the next book in the series which features Jamie’s brother Sean, a mysterious and dangerous guy. Like I said, I’m a sucker for a spy story.