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Title: The Garden Intrigue
Author: Lauren Willig
Genre: Historical spy romance (Napoleonic Era)
Thingummies: 3
Synopsis: She lost her first husband tragically. He's trying to steal plans for a superweapon from Napoleon. They fight crime, by which I mean write a play.
Thoughts: Another charming, if slight, spy romance from Willig. The double plot thing—in which there are parallel storylines between historical spies and a modern historian researching them—is becoming slightly less grating as she spends less and less time with the modern author-insert researcher. The spies are so much more charming, you always hate to go back to the rather silly problems of the Bridget Jonesy historian.
In this case, we have two people who each (for moderately good reasons) pretend to be a great deal sillier than they actually are. They fall in love with each other mostly because they are each the first person to recognize that the other is more intelligent than first glance would indicate. It intersects nicely with some historical political manuvering that is both surprising and entertaining.
I do wish more had been done with the old flame who's also after the plans. I think a more ironic and entertaining fate could have been devised.
Author: Lauren Willig
Genre: Historical spy romance (Napoleonic Era)
Thingummies: 3
Synopsis: She lost her first husband tragically. He's trying to steal plans for a superweapon from Napoleon. They fight crime, by which I mean write a play.
Thoughts: Another charming, if slight, spy romance from Willig. The double plot thing—in which there are parallel storylines between historical spies and a modern historian researching them—is becoming slightly less grating as she spends less and less time with the modern author-insert researcher. The spies are so much more charming, you always hate to go back to the rather silly problems of the Bridget Jonesy historian.
In this case, we have two people who each (for moderately good reasons) pretend to be a great deal sillier than they actually are. They fall in love with each other mostly because they are each the first person to recognize that the other is more intelligent than first glance would indicate. It intersects nicely with some historical political manuvering that is both surprising and entertaining.
I do wish more had been done with the old flame who's also after the plans. I think a more ironic and entertaining fate could have been devised.
