Tag: Spy Novels

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Review: The Passion of the Purple Plumeria (Pink Carnation #10) by Lauren Willig

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I don’t know why but I always seem to go into the later Pink Carnation books with a preconceived notion of the romance.

With the last book, I was so not looking forward to it but found it was one of the more enjoyable ones! So one would think that I would keep an open mind. But I didn’t.

I was not really looking forward to an ‘old person romance’ in this book…not that I’m a spring chicken mind you but still…something about Miss Gwen and Colonel Reid just didn’t scream sexy to me.

In my mind, Miss Gwen is this old lady chaperone with pursed lips and grey hair while Colonel Reid seemed like this rough around the edges ladies man with grey hair….both charming in their own right but not anyone that I would fancy reading a romance about.

I am continually shocked with Willig’s ability to make me love her romances in spite of myself and my preconceived notions. Mind blown.

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Review: The Garden of Intrigue (Pink Carnation #9) by Lauren Willig

by The Lit Bitch2 Comments on Review: The Garden of Intrigue (Pink Carnation #9) by Lauren Willig

This year I decided to officially participate in Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon for the first time ever. I had some time on my hands and some good books to start reading so I was eager for an excuse to sit and read undisturbed while my husband watched out little one.

I started The Garden of Intrigue almost immediately after completing The Orchid Affair and I’ll be honest, I was supposed to read it for Readathon but I almost finished it before Readathon even started!

Again, I’ll be honest and say that I was not looking forward to reading this one. Augustus Whittlesby was the singularly most annoying character in The Orchid Affair. His poetry was so over the top and I just couldn’t stomach him for more than a page or two.

I had serious reservations about this book but it’s the next in the series so I didn’t feel like I could avoid it.

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Review: The Orchid Affair (Pink Carnation #8) by Lauren Willig

by The Lit Bitch2 Comments on Review: The Orchid Affair (Pink Carnation #8) by Lauren Willig

After diving back into the Pink Carnation series with the sixth book, The Betrayal of the Blood Lily, I was eagerly ready to continue reading.

I have already read the seventh book so I moved on to The Orchid Affair instead. As with the previous books we meet a likable heroine in a decidedly awkward situation and a headstrong bachelor with the last thing on his mind being love.

While many of Willig’s books have a decidedly obvious formula, that has never turned me off to the series. I think what I love most is her ability to make me buy into the romance no matter how odd or challenging it is.

Veteran governess Laura Grey joins the Selwick Spy School expecting to find elaborate disguises and thrilling adventures in service to the spy known as the Pink Carnation. She hardly expects her first assignment to be serving as governess for the children of AndrĂ© Jaouen, right-hand man to Bonaparte’s minister of police.

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Review: The Betrayal of the Blood Lily (Pink Carnation #6) by Lauren Willig

by The Lit Bitch3 Comments on Review: The Betrayal of the Blood Lily (Pink Carnation #6) by Lauren Willig

After the fifth Pink Carnation book, I kind of felt like I needed a little break from the Pink Carnation series. And by little break I mean like five years….thats how long it’s been since I read one of the Pink Carnation books.

I love the series as a whole but the last book in the series that I read, just left me a little wanting in the uniqueness category.

So I abandoned it in favor of other books, though I always knew that someday I would come back to it because lets face it, I am in love with this series, but I needed  little time to step away from it and come back to it in order to love it.

Granted five years seems excessive, but it happened eventually.

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Review: The Paris Spy (Maggie Hope Mystery #7) by Susan Elia MacNeal

by The Lit Bitch2 Comments on Review: The Paris Spy (Maggie Hope Mystery #7) by Susan Elia MacNeal

The Maggie Hope mystery series is part mystery and part spy….probably heavier on the spy side but it has murder mystery elements woven in for variety. Some might argue that this series isn’t sure what it is….is it spy or mystery but in my opinion, I like the variation. It keeps thing exciting for me, having a character solve murders in one book and then go on a spy mission in another book.

I’ve been a fan of this series for some time now and though I haven’t loved every book, I love Maggie as a character and always excited to see where life will take her next.

Maggie Hope has come a long way since serving as a typist for Winston Churchill. Now she’s working undercover for the Special Operations Executive in the elegant but eerily silent city of Paris, where SS officers prowl the streets in their Mercedes and the Ritz is draped with swastika banners.

Walking among the enemy is tense and terrifying, and even though she’s disguised in chic Chanel, Maggie can’t help longing for home.

But her missions come first. Maggie’s half sister, Elise, has disappeared after being saved from a concentration camp, and Maggie is desperate to find her—that is, if Elise even wants to be found. Equally urgent, Churchill is planning the Allied invasion of France, and SOE agent Erica Calvert has been captured, the whereabouts of her vital research regarding Normandy unknown.

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