spy
Want a fun, adventuresome romp through post-Napoleon English spy tropes? Lord and Lady Spy has a lot of fun tweaking the genre’s conventions while creating two characters who remain true to themselves no matter what while giving us a lot of good character work. It’s not quite perfect, but is ...
“I go to work thinking of death” begins Ji-min Lee’s The Starlet and the Spy a sentence that sets the pace for a very readable historical novel that takes a wholly different but understandably downbeat look at Marilyn Monroe’s iconic 1954 visit to troops serving in the Korean War. From its ...
Note: This review contains slight spoilers for earlier books in the series.
If you've not been reading Tracy Grant, you really have been missing out. Her Rannoch/Fraser series of romantic suspense features a compelling relationship, fascinating characters and worldbuilding that I just love. If yo ...
An AAR Top 100 Romance
originally published on January 11, 2008
I almost passed on reviewing The Spymaster's Lady. The cheesy cover (open ruffle-shirted hunk - yawn) and even cheesier title (oh, no - not another spymaster!) led me to believe that it would be yet another boring, cookie-cutter, Rege ...
An AAR Top 100 Romance
originally published on August 27, 2014
In All About Romance’s review of The Black Hawk in November 2011, Jean Wan wrote, “Once in a while, during every reader's literary life, you encounter a book that reminds you why you are a reader. It renews your faith, if faith wa ...
In A Hope Divided, we meet Marlie Lynch - a spy for the Union living in North Carolina - and Ewan McCall, an escaped prisoner with a dark past. They’re both brilliant, strong, resilient, and willing to do whatever it takes to stop the Confederacy from winning the war. As they have to flee Marlie ...
An AAR Top 100 Romance
originally published on June 10, 2010
Plodding through forgettable spy novels (and historicals in general) sometimes makes me forget what a truly great book looks like – and then I read one like The Forbidden Rose. Joanna Bourne’s latest novel has everything I love about ...
An AAR Top 100 Romance
originally published on May 20, 2010
His at Night is the first Sherry Thomas book I've read since Private Arrangements, a book I liked but didn't love. To my mind, this one's better, and certainly worth the anticipation and buzz it's receiving. The hero and heroine are both ...
Beauty Like the Night, the eagerly awaited sixth book in Joanna Bourne’s widely acclaimed Spymaster series, tells the story of Séverine de Cabrillac, whom we first met as a very young child caught up in the revolutionary terror of late eighteenth century Paris in The Forbidden Rose. Ten years a ...
I am at a loss to understand why Alissa Johnson doesn’t seem to get the same kind of attention afforded to the ‘big-name’ authors of historical romance. Every book of hers I’ve read has been superbly written, featuring well-drawn, three-dimensional characters, a well-constructed plot, subt ...