Month: July 2017

A Dance With Seduction by Alyssa Alexander

On By BarbaraIn Barb's Reviews, Regency Era (1811-1820)1 Comment

A Dance with Seduction (A Spy in the Ton, #1)Barbara’s Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Series: A Spy In The Ton #3
Publication Date: 07/24/17

This is my first book by Alyssa Alexander. After looking at reviews of the other books in this series, I may go back and read them.

I seem to be all over the place with this book. I love spy stories and I think code-breakers are some of the unsung heroes of war. This book has both and the premise of the story was a good one. I just felt that it frequently moved too slowly.

Maximilian Westwood is a second son who makes his living doing translations in the several languages he speaks. He is also a retired code-breaker for the crown. He is taciturn, growly, frowning and totally engrossed in his translations. Max is the most honorable man you could ever want to meet. That is his nature and it is also to contrast his disreputable older brother.

Vivienne Le Fleur is a British spy. She has been trained since she was a child in all of the skills to become the consummate spy. She is superb with all weapons – pistols, knives, swords, etc. The Flower is an opera dancer and the mistress of Henri. She is also totally immersed in the persona she had to adopt in order to facilitate her spying. She is so immersed that she no longer knows where that persona ends and where the real ‘her’ begins.

Henri is the handler for Vivienne, The Flower, and I won’t say much about him other than to say that he’s a real jerk.

A French spymaster known as The Vulture wants to recruit the Flower and turn her into a double agent by any means – fair or foul – mostly foul. When she won’t turn, he kidnaps her sister to force her to do her bidding.

Flower worked with Max when he was a government code-breaker and she trusted him – at least as much as she trusted anyone. So, when she needed to have the Vulture’s coded messages deciphered, she went to him. They end up working together to solve the mystery.

What I really didn’t like really didn’t have much to do with the story – Max’s brother was really detestable and I would have loved it if something irreversible had happened to him. He could die or he could go insane or . . . Well, I just didn’t care, but it would have been nice for Max to take over the title or at least the management of the estate.

I also didn’t like that there was no real, lasting punishment for Henri. Somebody other than the Flower should have taken him on!

“I requested and received this book at no cost to me and volunteered to read it; my review is my honest opinion and given without any influence by the author or publisher.”

The Importance of Being Scandalous by Kimberly Bell

On By TracyIn Tracy's Reviews, Victorian Era (1837-1901)1 Comment

The Importance of Being ScandalousThe Importance of Being Scandalous by Kimberly Bell
Tracy’s rating: 2 of 5 stars

Series: The Tale of Two Sisters, #1
Release Date: July 25, 2017

This book did not work for me. I usually like the friends to lovers trope, but I was disappointed with this story.

Amelia “Mia” Bishop and Nicholas “Nick” Wakefield have been friends forever – along with Amelia’s sister Julia. The three of them were inseparable as children and for his part, Nick has been in love with Amelia for as long as he can remember, but his family does not approve of hers (this was my first bone of contention – the author never explains why Amelia’s family is shunned – it is implied that there was some scandal and it is also implied that it is because of Julia – but it is never clearly explained to the reader). He leaves for his grand tour without ever telling Amelia of his true feelings. He writes to her everyday that he is away – but never sends the letters.

Amelia misses Nick, but she is content to stay home with her sister Julia. Julia was born with some sort of spinal issue and has a limp – I am not sure why, but it seems that she is part of the reason her family is shunned and she has been kept out of society. Amelia is fine with that as well, but things change when she becomes engaged to an earl.

Nick returns home after two years to find things have drastically changed, first his father is suffering from dementia and his mother doesn’t want Nick’s brother (the heir) to know and he learns that the love of his life is engaged to marry another man.

Nick and Amelia reunite, and she is confused by the feelings she has for him. Nick still hasn’t told her how he feels and is sort of a wuss. He is willing to keep silent and wallow in heartbreak until his friend Jasper “Jas” shows up unannounced. Even with Jas’ prodding, Nick will not tell Amelia how he feels.

Amelia begins to have second thoughts about her engagement and when her fiancé refuses to stand up for her sister, she tries to break things off with him. He threatens to sue her father if she does not marry him and she decides that she must make him break things off with her.

The rest of the story is Amelia with the help of Jas trying to do outrageous things to make the earl dump her.

I really didn’t care for this book, I thought Amelia was immature, Julia was a whack-job, Nick was a wuss and Jas was over the top. The writing was ok – but some of the banter between the sister was just annoying and there was a lot of modern verbiage. The story moved at decent pace and the idea of the story was good – but the execution combined with the fact that the author clearly doesn’t understand nobility titles or correct formal address and didn’t give the reader enough backstory to understand why Amelia’s family was shunned, just ruined the book for me.

*I was provided an eARC of this by NetGalley and the publisher and am voluntarily leaving a review*