THE CUTTHROAT COUNTESS

Two Regency-era secret agents open up to another person for the first time.

Josephine Brown has secrets. She wears a mask to perform as Blade, the incognito woman at the center of the daring knife-throwing act in Farnham’s Fantastical Female Fayre. And she’s spent most of her life in hiding, assisting her father with his cloak-and-dagger missions for the Crown and never staying in one place for long. She’s grown used to solitude, but since making real friends at the circus after her father’s death, she’s begun to wonder if she should stay put for once. Plus, she hasn’t stopped thinking about Elliot Wingate since they were briefly lovers on a rescue mission in France last year, and staying where she is provides glimpses of him. Elliot hasn’t stopped thinking about Jo, either, even though he knows he should focus on his job for the Home Office and look for a proper lady to marry, as his grandmother desires. Spying on each other and finding excuses to keep in touch, both remain sure of their feelings, but keeping secrets and suppressing desires are hard habits for either to renounce, and some of those secrets may mean it’s safer for them to stay apart. Fans of the first two Wicked Women of Whitechapel volumes will be delighted to see Blade get her time in the spotlight with this story. Unfortunately, because it overlaps significantly with the plot of the second volume, they may also feel a certain amount of déjà vu in this book's first half. It’s easy to overlook in the face of the undeniable attraction and steamy scenes between Jo and Elliot. Because they are so clearly enamored so early in the story, the narrative tension mostly derives from the suspense in a predictable but enjoyable subplot. Newcomers to the series will be fine starting with this one, which can be read as a stand-alone.

Uneven but ultimately successful feminist historical romance.