Author: Barbara

Avid reader/reviewer of historical romance and historical mysteries.

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.”

Walking On My Grave by Carolyn Hart

On By BarbaraIn Barb's Reviews, MysteryLeave a comment

Walking on My Grave (A Death on Demand Mysteries)Barbara’s Rating: 3 of 5 stars    Maybe even 2.5 stars

Series: Death on Demand #26
Publication Date: May 2, 2017

I absolutely cannot believe I’m giving this one three stars. This is the final book in the series and I would have hoped for it to end with a bang rather than a whimper. I would have loved it if Annie and Max had decided to close everything down and sail around the world or maybe they find themselves expecting a child – just something – rather than this non-ending ending. Max has deteriorated to the point that I almost didn’t recognize him – he is such a wimpy, uninteresting fellow. Annie too has become a wimp and has lost her determination. So, I guess I have to say that, given the quality of this book, it is time for the series to end and it is a sad ending indeed for a much-loved series.

The book is a normal size, but a portion at the end is taken up with the content of the Chapbooks that are being written by Henny, Laurel, and Emma. I will definitely NOT miss those three because they are becoming very tiresome. At the beginning of the book, you also have a number of pages taken up with a ‘Cast of Characters’ and a ‘timetable’ that is totally unnecessary. So, you have the middle portion left for the actual story.

The mystery itself is okay, but you just don’t come to care about the characters. In previous books you would have come to really know and understand the characters – maybe there were just too many suspects. For some of the suspects, we probably had a total of 5 or 6 lines dealing with them – Curt Roundtree is a prime example of that. Also, the first murder didn’t even occur until something like 100-pages into the book. As I said, the mystery was an okay mystery, but I just never felt invested in any of the victims or suspects.

Frankly, I almost felt that this book was written by another author – not only a different author who hadn’t written any of the previous books but one who hadn’t read them either. I was really disappointed in the wrap-up for the series.