OLT's Reviews > Rogue Spy

This is the kind of romance that rivals the best popular mainstream fiction in complexity of plot and characters and in writing. I feel like a big girl when I read Joanna Bourne. She gets my brain engaged in addition to the usual heart engagement of most other romances. This is due mostly to her exceptional ability as a writer but also, I suspect, because she doesn't crank out novels at the speed of sound, unlike many other romance authors who shall be nameless.

So far (up to year 2014) there have been only 5 books in Bourne's Spymaster series (not counting Her Ladyship's Companion from 1983 which, although it features Hawk, is not exactly the Hawk of her more recent work). This new one, ROGUE SPY, can be read as a standalone but it's much more interesting and challenging to read each one in the context of the other four. Two things make this challenging:

1) The first Spymaster book was published in 2008 and this latest in 2014. That's a long time to retain information especially when reading 100s of other books at the same time.

2) The books were not written in chronological order of when they actually took place. The Spymaster's Lady: Spymaster 2 was first published in 2008 and takes place in France and England in 1802. My Lord and Spymaster (The Spymaster Series Book 3) was also first published in 2008 and takes place in London in 1811. The Forbidden Rose: Spymaster 1 was first published in 2010 and takes place in Paris in 1794. The Black Hawk: Spymaster 4 was first published in 2011 and takes place in France and England over the years 1794-1818. Now this ROGUE SPY, published in 2014, takes place in London in 1802.

So you see that Bourne has had her readers going back and forth in time, although there have been many recurring figures in the novels. Spies Doyle and Hawker figure in all of them, Grey in two and Paxton, our hero here, can be found in two of the other books (THE SPYMASTER'S LADY and THE FORBIDDEN ROSE).

Paxton has always been a fascinating character. Recruited by the French as a member of the Cache, children trained from early years to become spies for the French Revolution, he later becomes a spy working for the British. Is he a double agent? What is his allegiance? What we do know is that he's a trained killer, working often as a hit man for the British. He's also an enigma. Known as Devoir to the French, he becomes Thomas Paxton to the British and neither name is really his.

Then there's heroine Cami Leyland, aka Verite, who is not really either of those names either. She also was drafted into the Cache and she and Paxton became close when training together at the Coach House in Paris as children to become French Revolutionary spies. They later, of course, go their separate ways and now as adults find themselves together once again.

These two are complicated, conflicted people. The story is complicated and complex as a spy story and at the same time is a beautiful love story of two people who must learn to trust each other again, even when evidence that they shouldn't stands in the way.

There are lots of trust issues and questions here. Should fellow British agents trust Pax? Should they trust Cami? Should Pax and Cami trust each other? What are the true identities of Pax/Devoir and Cami/Verite? Who is the bad guy French spy The Merchant? What does he really want? This spy story has a complex plot that will satisfy the most adventurous reader.

There's really more spy story than romance here, but it's a quality love story running through the pages that is quite lovely and satisfies a romance reader.