Book report

My Lord and Spymaster isn't as good as I hoped it would be. It's BETTER.

It's a historical romance, and is set during the Napoleonic Wars/Regency period. The heroine is the daughter of a fairly shady merchant marine and she is the brains behind his shipping empire. She was initially raised by her mother in the slums and when she was 9, went to work for the underworld kingpin, by whom she was trained as a thief and for whom she ran errands. Her father came back from overseas and stole her away when she was about 12. She is 21 and has been all over the world with her father, who has hired governesses to educate her and try to make her into more of a lady. Her father has been arrested for treason, having been accused of carrying shipping secrets from the English government to the French.

Some of the English spy network believe he's guilty while others aren't so sure that he's the spy called Cinq. All the different government offices don't seem to care if he's guilty or not, they want someone caught, even if it's not necessarily the right person, and they want their hands on the father's wealth and ships and so on. Some of them want their hands on his beautiful daughter.

The man who gathered the evidence against the father is a sea captain and the head of another shipping company, who lost a ship (and some friends) to the French after the traitor passed information about it to them. He is working with the spy network to prove that the father is Cinq while the daughter is trying to prove her father's innocence and believes that this man is Cinq. She sets up a sort of ambush for the man so she can pick his pockets, but during that, a gang of murderous men show up with knives and the captain and his spy friend manage to kill a few of them and rescue the girl. And it all gets more complicated after that.

Definitely a good book. I swear that Joanna Bourne could write her grocery list and I would buy it. She's that good. It's only her second book, so I certainly hope she keeps getting better and better. Yes, I'm about to squeal and clap and pass out or whatever....