The Spymaster’s Lady Review: My Best Read of the Year

Don’t look at the cover. I mean it. The Spymaster’s Lady by Joanna Bourne has the cheapest grocery-store romance cover I have ever seen: some dude’s abs, a shirt that has given up, and a manor house in the background for plausibility. Look away, download it to your Kindle, and read it anyway — because this is the best book I’ve read all year. I finished it in 2 days, I gasped out loud at the plot twists, and I’m still a little shocked that a historical romance is getting 5 stars from me.

The spoiler-free setup: Annique Villiers is a French spy known as the Fox Cub. She lands in a prison cell next to Robert Grey, a British spymaster, and the two of them strike an uneasy alliance to get out alive. Grey wants to bring her back to London, because he believes she knows about Napoleon’s plans to invade England. Annique intends to thwart him at every turn. What happens once they’re out of that cell is the ride, so that’s every detail you’re getting from me (and no, I will not spoil the twists, don’t ask).

What I Loved About The Spymaster’s Lady by Joanna Bourne

I’m picky about spy stories. I co-wrote an episode of the spy thriller CONDOR back in my Hollywood days, and I’ve spent real hours in a writers’ room arguing about how spies behave. What got me here is how Bourne writes spies operating as a unit. They read each other’s micro expressions. They catch a flicker across a room and adjust. Everyone is ten steps ahead of everyone else, and because I was reading their faces right along with them, I understood these characters at a visceral level.

There are a few scenes where people who are at war with each other end up in the same room, and I sat there thinking, holy shit, what is going to happen? It isn’t only guns blazing (though yes, okay, guns are blazing too!). It’s social politicking: who knows what, who is bluffing, who just gave themselves away with one look. I love James Bond, and I love the Jason Bourne trilogy, but that kind of nuance gets lost somewhere around the third car chase. My jaw was on the floor. The best spy scene is a room full of people smiling at each other.

It’s period accurate, too. Bourne clearly did her research, and the history never reads like homework. And the plotting is gorgeous. The balance of romance to action to plot to historical detail kept me on my toes, every setup gets paid off, and the book uses dramatic irony so cleverly that I kept wanting to warn the characters about things they didn’t know yet.

Why It Felt Like a True Romance Novel

This is a romance novel, and the romance matters. But it isn’t only about the romance. It’s the story of a woman growing as a character, and the love story lives inside that story instead of replacing it. I’ve felt a little starved for exactly this lately.

My gripe with a lot of current romance is that the sex gets pushed to the forefront, and the books end up feeling like cheap fanfiction instead of a true romance novel. I want a plot that changes you, moves you, and makes you feel like you’ve stepped into another world with these characters.

There’s nothing wrong with books that lean harder on the spice than the plot, and there’s room for every kind of reader. But I think there has to be a level of artistry, because that’s what art should be, and this book has it on every page.

Historical romance isn’t usually my cup of tea, so I almost skipped this one. But I love spy thrillers, and this turned out to be an incredible, completely underrated spy thriller that happens to have a romance at its heart.

What I Didn’t Love About The Spymaster’s Lady

The cover. That’s my one complaint, and I stand by it. It’s the only thing standing between this book and a much bigger audience, so please don’t judge this one by it.

Final Thoughts on The Spymaster’s Lady

I’m still shocked that I’m giving this 5 stars, and I’d do it again. As I write this, the Kindle edition is $0.99 on Amazon, which makes it the easiest yes of the year. It’s the first book in Bourne’s Spymaster series. And if you loved the tradecraft in The Spy and the Traitor and wished it came with a love story, start here.

My final score: 5 out of 5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The balance of romance, spycraft, plot, and history is the best I’ve read all year.

Spice rating: 2 out of 5 🌶️🌶️

Do I recommend this book? 👍 Yes!

Want more like this? Browse my ranked list of the best romantasy books on Kindle Unlimited — I update it regularly.

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