The Spymaster's Lady by Joanna Bourne ****

The Spymaster's Lady by Joanna Bourne

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I had already read this in print, and liked it - 4 stars. The narrator, Kirsten Potter, was new to me, and I think I would give her a B/B- for this narration. Her reading in general was pretty good, and the French accent she gave Annique worked for me most of the time. She had a few mispronunciations that so struck me I physically shivered when she said them, notably "LeBlanc" where she put such emphasis on the final C. The C would not be pronounced in French; in fact, the name Leblanc is fairly common in Louisiana where the C is also not pronounced, sounding more like "luh-blah(n)". (The N would not really be pronounced, just sort of nasalized.) Another word that made me grind my teeth was gendarmes: the French would not pronounce the final S. OH, and Francois, the man she considered making love with (or was it him considering it with her?), would surely not like being given a woman's name: Francois would not have the S pronounced like the name Francoise.

OK, I'm being nitpicky but still - she went so far with giving Annique a French accent/pattern of speech (which, with Bourne's lyrical, French-patterned prose, she really had to do!) that having those kinds of things just spoiled the mood for me. It also seemed her voice got sort of scratchier by the end (or was it scratchy the whole time?) and that made Annique sound older. If I were rating this on narration only, I would have to lower it to 3 stars, maybe 3.5, but the story was wonderful and so I'm back to 4!

Below is my review of the print version from July, 2010:

This is a series that has had a lot of buzz in the past couple of years, so it's been on my radar to read. Since there is a new one in the series, it's risen on my list and I got the first 2 books, and am on a waiting list for the new one.

The heroine of Lady is Annique, a spy in her own right. She's 19 or 20 but has spent her entire life in the service of France because her mother and father were also spies, and raised her as such. She possessed a special gift - a photographic memory - which meant she could be trusted with maps, notes, photos that needed to be transmitted to the top spy via her memory. She's smart, she's wily, she's resourceful - I kept thinking of her as 19th c Lisbeth Salander (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). She can throw knives; she can see in the dark; she can run like the wind. She's on a final journey, she figures, since there are several people who want her last big secret, and her mother and father are both dead.

Into her path comes Grey, the British Spymaster. She releases him from the cellar of the bad guy, and now their lives are entangled in oh so many ways, because Grey is the British Spymaster, and therefore her sworn enemy. And they are both attracted to one another - and he and she play a game of cat and mouse throughout the story, with him allowing her to lead him to the endpoint of her journey where he is hoping to learn the location of the secret everyone knows she possesses.

It seemed that much of the book was told from her (3rd person) POV, with a taste of how she would think in French, cleverly done with grammar mimicking the French way of speaking. The reader is also introduced to Grey's cohorts - Adrian and Doyle, also British spies. They make an engaging team, filling in strengths and making it more fun and oh so slightly more credible.

I really didn't see the final twist before it was revealed or how it affected the ending, so it was a surprise to me and I thought it made for a unique and interesting plot. Plus, from my vantage point, Grey was all besottedness and protection and I thought that made the ending very romantic. I just love a besotted hero! 4 stars - not a keeper but a wonderful story all the same.

My Lord and Spymaster by Joanna Bourne ***

This is the second book in what is apparently a trilogy (The Forbidden Rose being the 3rd) about spymasters. I was a little disappointed that the hero and heroine of the first book, The Spymaster's Lady, weren't even mentioned. In this one, the cohorts of the first Spymaster (Grey), Adrian and Doyle, are featured, and now Adrian is the Head of or Chief of or whatever Grey was of the British Intelligence. I guess Grey retired.

I also didn't have a good feel for how much later it was - there was still talk of Napoleon and secrets and traitors, so I figured it wasn't much later. So where were Grey and Annique??

The heroine of this one is Jess, and she, like Annique from the previous book, was raised poor and had to fend for herself. She was abandoned as a child - or else she thought she was, but her father was in prison, or... something (shaking head) - and raised by Lazarus in the worst part of London - think a mean cross between Dickens's Fagin and Bill Sikes, with the emphasis really on villainy. At about age 8, her father returns for her and spirits her off to Russia, where somehow they become rich and are now in shipping. In London. Well, smuggling, but that's nitpicking.

Her father has been thrown into - well, whatever the house on Meeks Street is, not really a jail, but the British Intelligence, by the hero of the book, Sebastian (therefore now Jess's sworn enemy). Sebastian is also in shipping and dabbles a bit in intelligence (of the spy variety) and has come up with evidence that the senior Whitby is Cinq, a notorious traitor who also sank one of Sebastian's ships. Sebastian also had a hard life as a child, the bastard of a titled person who somehow - really, you have to read it - inherits the title, the house and the various relatives who live with him. And now he, like Jess, is wealthy and hard working and all things good.

Jess and Sebastian spend a lot of time lusting after one another as well as trying to best each other on their sneaky skills - each breaks into the other's property and snoops about, each trying to prove the other is Cinq. Eventually they have to prove someone else besides Jess's father is Cinq so they can get together.

I dunno, hot on the heels of the charming Annique, I just couldn't buy into Jess's story. Another hoyden, who invented accounting (or so it seemed) at age 16, running her father's business completely by 20, yada yada yada. We learned about her thieving and pickpocket skills, and her bag of tricks. Frankly, I'm not a big fan of ferrets - they stink - and I kept thinking about how she had that one on or around her all the time. Every time the hero thought of how she smelled, I kept expecting him to hold his nose over the pervasive smell of ferrets. (He does mention it once, calling it musky.) Maybe the author has never been around ferret owners, who - really - smell like their animals pretty much all the time in my experience. And it isn't a nice smell.

So, Jess and Sebastian keep looking for Cinq, and lusting after one another, and he keeps promising her they'll end up in bed, and she keeps saying nonono, and... then when Cinq is revealed and she somehow wants to help cover for him... OK, I just found it all so-so.

3 stars - it was ok, not unlikeable but not nearly as charming and romantic as the previous book.