Smitten by Books

For years he’d lived a lie. It was time to tell the truth . . . even if it cost him the woman he loved.

Ten years ago he was a boy, given the name Thomas Paxton and sent by Revolutionary France to infiltrate the British Intelligence Service. Now his sense of honor brings him back to London, alone and unarmed, to confess. But instead of facing the gallows, he’s given one last impossible assignment to prove his loyalty.

Lovely, lying, former French spy Camille Leyland is dragged from her safe rural obscurity by threats and blackmail. Dusting off her spy skills, she sets out to track down a ruthless French fanatic and rescue the innocent victim he’s holding—only to find an old colleague already on the case. Pax.

Old friendship turns to new love, and as Pax and Camille’s dark secrets loom up from the past, Pax is left with a choice—go rogue from the Service or lose Camille forever…

 

A priceless first line.

The end of her own particular world arrived early on a Tuesday morning, wrapped in brown paper and twine, sealed with a blob of red wax.

From that moment I was hooked. I had to know more and it got better and better. Two sentences later the words ‘Fluffy Aunts’ entered my vocabulary. Two words so innocuous on their own, but when combined made me smile, then later on, laugh. The prose in this story is superb. From romance scenes to action sequences and unique dialogue, I fell in love and wholly immersed in a place I didn’t want to leave.

Bourne creates a lush, faux reality environment with a heroine I wanted to be and a hero I’d gladly, for lack of a better term, ‘ride or die’ with. Pax and Cami are wonderful spies, excellent secret keepers, and masters at planning. Cami challenges Pax and he backs her up in life or death situations without hesitation. Truly this is a case where the heroine is perfectly fine on her own, but being with Pax just makes everything better. I love stories like that.

Rich storytelling and complex character history also made this book fantastic. I now long to be a Baldoni, trained from a young age to engage in illegal acts and wield weapons. Sometimes when an author throws in a complicated backstory or large extended family it can overpower the plot and throws me out of the story. In this case, nope. The balance was perfect and added an extra element to increase the stakes of the story rather than extract from them.

The romance element at first seemed complicated. I thought it would be sweet and slow. Cami and Pax surprised me though, instead the attraction was fierce. One only increased over the distance of time. It’s like a reunited trope in ways and it works well. In fact, Pax’s character history makes him unique in the romance and sensual aspect. His angles have been done in other stories before, but I really like how in this book Bourne didn’t capitalize on them or make them a big obstacle. Instead she provided solutions to remove his objections to romance and taking things a step further.

For readers thinking about reading a Bourne book I’d describe her writing as a cross between Sherry Thomas and Shana Galen. Think the prose of Thomas meets the adventure of Galen. The best part there’s five other books in the series and you don’t have to read them in order. In fact, I’d skipped Black Hawks book. Yet, after reading this story I need to go back and read Black Hawk— quick, fast, without hesitation.

Overall, this is a must read and there’s a reason this book is already nominated for an award from RT Magazine. I suggest you pick this one up post haste.

Reviewed by Landra
Heat Level: Hot