Love, Lies and Spies by Cindy Anstey

Love, Lies and Spies

by Cindy Anstey

In the early 1800s, when her father sends her to London for a season, eighteen-year-old Juliana Telford, who prefers researching ladybugs to marriage, meets handsome Spencer Northam, a spy posing as a young gentleman of leisure.

Reviewed by MurderByDeath on

3.5 of 5 stars

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I feel like I'm not going to do this book justice.  It's marketed as a YA, but I'd happily hand this over to a middle school reader who wants to tackle something different.   

The writing is really, really good, but it's written on a slightly more juvenile level than the YA I normally dip into.  So we have a well plotted story, very solid characters, a well-researched setting and time period, and characters that come to life on the page.  Once I got past the opening scene's silliness, the story moved along for me at a reasonable clip.  But instead of wanting to rate it 4-4.5 stars at the end, I was just left trying not to use the word "cute", and I think that's a reflection of the reading level the book is written in.   

Overall, I thought it was good, definitely not a waste of time or money, but I'm just *sniffle* a little too old to give it the kudos it deserves.   

(Summer Book Bingo for either YA or Romance; I haven't decided which yet.)

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 6 June, 2016: Finished reading
  • 6 June, 2016: Reviewed