Willy W. reviewed on + 503 more book reviews
OK book.
Young woman, Susannah, loses everything when her father dies in debt and she must go live with a heretofore unknown aunt in a much humbled lifestyle.
Almost middle-aged man, Kit, is banished like a child to the country by his father who sees his behavior as self destructive. Kit's also a former spy with spy sense and sniffs out a mystery when Susannah has too many "accidents". More mishaps ensue, they fall in love, mystery solved. HEA.
Julie Anne Long writes compelling characters to be sure. The story is good in that the couple is attracted from the start but Long lets them get to know each other before it's "lurrrve". However we're over 200 pages into the book before either will admit even to himself/herself that there's even attraction. That isn't super interesting romance. Long includes a couple pretty good love scenes, not very titillating IMO but not totally glossed over either.
Perhaps it really would've happened this way, but it was also disconcerting that 34-37 year old Kit (she couldn't quite make up her mind about his age but did describe him as a "geezer") is forced by his father to either go to the country for 30 days or he'll be put on a ship to Egypt. Through most of the first 2/3 of the book, Kit seemed like a child. We're supposed to believe that a man who served for 10 years in a war with valor and honors then returns home to be ordered around and treated a like a child by his father? And he's supposedly been home and not on active duty as a spy for 5 years and does nothing but sit around drinking but he's physically fit and ready with super-spy action? He's not fat and swollen like most heavy drinkers? It's easier to get around stuff like that when characters are interesting and persuasive, which in this case they are, but when the book is over, that's what I'm thinking about, not the love story.
I liked the book well enough to read the next in the series, which pretty much sums it up.
Young woman, Susannah, loses everything when her father dies in debt and she must go live with a heretofore unknown aunt in a much humbled lifestyle.
Almost middle-aged man, Kit, is banished like a child to the country by his father who sees his behavior as self destructive. Kit's also a former spy with spy sense and sniffs out a mystery when Susannah has too many "accidents". More mishaps ensue, they fall in love, mystery solved. HEA.
Julie Anne Long writes compelling characters to be sure. The story is good in that the couple is attracted from the start but Long lets them get to know each other before it's "lurrrve". However we're over 200 pages into the book before either will admit even to himself/herself that there's even attraction. That isn't super interesting romance. Long includes a couple pretty good love scenes, not very titillating IMO but not totally glossed over either.
Perhaps it really would've happened this way, but it was also disconcerting that 34-37 year old Kit (she couldn't quite make up her mind about his age but did describe him as a "geezer") is forced by his father to either go to the country for 30 days or he'll be put on a ship to Egypt. Through most of the first 2/3 of the book, Kit seemed like a child. We're supposed to believe that a man who served for 10 years in a war with valor and honors then returns home to be ordered around and treated a like a child by his father? And he's supposedly been home and not on active duty as a spy for 5 years and does nothing but sit around drinking but he's physically fit and ready with super-spy action? He's not fat and swollen like most heavy drinkers? It's easier to get around stuff like that when characters are interesting and persuasive, which in this case they are, but when the book is over, that's what I'm thinking about, not the love story.
I liked the book well enough to read the next in the series, which pretty much sums it up.
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