Passion

by Louise Bagshawe

[Leah]

Melissa Elmet and William Hyde fell madly in love when they were teenagers and end up marrying in secret. However Melissa’s family get involved and the marriage ends up being annulled and the pair never see each other again. Melissa now lives the life of an academic whereas Will is now a billionaire. Their worlds are incredibly far apart but they’re thrown back together when Will, an ex-MI6 agent, notices a link between recent killings and fears Melissa is next. The pair end up on the run as Lola, a beautiful female assassin, chases them all over the world in hot pursuit.

Louise Bagshawe is an incredibly talented writer and I loved Sparkles when I read it a few years ago. Her books have always been quite complex but as her writing has developed her books have gotten more and more complex and Passion is, undoubtedly, her most complex yet. The book is billed as James Bond for girls and that’s an accurate description.

Passion begins by introducing us to Dimitri who has hired Lola, an assassin, to take out four people. It’s a very intriguing start to the book. We then go back to the past and see how Melissa and Will first met and fell in love before, ultimately, ending up being separated. We then come back to the present and see how the heartbreak has affected both Melissa and Will. The difference between the two is apparant and quite surprising: Melissa is now a shy, academic whereas Will is now a billionaire banker. The killings start quite quickly and after many years apart Will and Melissa are now thrown back together again, on the run from a very determined assassin.

As Melissa and Will try to outwit Lola the chase is indeed on. The book takes in many places around the world as they all try to find or outwit each other and the book is incredibly fast paced. The plot is ultimately the chase between Melissa, Will and Lola and it goes on throughout the book, pretty much from the first page until the last. Will being an ex-MI6 agent provides an extra twist to the book because it means he knows what Lola is trying to do so he can try and outwit her that way. Both Will and Lola are incredibly clever which makes for compulsive reading. Of course it wouldn’t be a Bagshawe book without romance and Will and Melissa fight their feelings for each other throughout the book.

The characters are all well-thought out and I liked seeing Melissa change from a shy, retiring academic into someone thinking like an assassin as she learns what it’s like trying to evade Lola and being constantly on the run and fearing for your life. At first Melissa didn’t seem to be a very strong character but as her life was threatened she became stronger as the book progressed. Will was a fantastic lead male character; yes he’s an ex-MI6 agent but I could tell he really cared for Melissa and only wanted the best for her. He may have done a lot of bad things when he was part of the MI6 but after leaving that life, it was like it was a part of him he put away. He didn’t forget about it but that was a part of life he felt he needed to do and when he was done, he was done. I actually liked Lola, which surprised me, as she’s hardly likeable. But the thing is she knew what her targets were and went after them like a woman possessed. She was incredibly fierce and hugely determined and I liked that in her. Melissa, Will and Lola are the three main characters but there are lots more behind the scenes who have orchestrated the whole thing.

Passion is told in the third person and flicks from Melissa’s point of view, Will’s point of view and Lola’s point of view as well as those involved in the bigger picture. I found it very easy to keep up with all of the changes of view and I loved switching from one character to the next. I wasn’t a huge fan of those involved in the bigger picture – those people who were the reasons Lola is chasing Melissa – but it helped make a rounder picture of the whole story. The reasons why Lola is chasing Melissa are quite complicated but Bagshawe explains it all well, and I did eventually make sense of it all. It was a very clever plot and I thought the chasing between the three main characters was very compulsive. Because it was told in the third person we could see just how close/far Lola was from Melissa and Will and I had no idea how the book was going to end.

The book is a huge blockbuster of a book. My trade paperback has 472 pages but the fun never stops so the pages just whizz by. I started it this morning and didn’t expect to finish it as I saw how large it was. I whizzed through it though and ended up rushing head-first towards the end. It was a hugely satisfying read and I can’t wait for Louise’s next book as she’s a fantastic storyteller.