A Lady’s Secret Weapon by Tracey Devlyn

Name of the book: The Lady’s Secret Weapon

Name of the author: Tracey Devlyn

Name of the publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca

ASIN: B00DDWIT2I

Print Length: 384 pages

To be released: October 1, 2013

Disclaimer: I got this book from the publisher/author from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

Synopsis :

With the world of espionage as the backdrop, the romance takes off between two characters who are spies! A historical romance with a spy background - how tantalizingly dangerous! The story starts off with Lord Ethan deBeau, Viscount Danforth, being hurt [I am presuming it is from the previous book of this series – which now I am hunting for..] and he is saved by a cloaked stranger. Not much is revealed about this stranger in the beginning but the stranger leaves a debt of life on Ethan’s head, which he feels he must thank the stranger for. But he could not find these strangers.

Ethan is the part of Nexus, an elite secret group fight formed to keep England safe. Ethan and his sister have always been trained to use whatever means they have to gather information. Ethan was best at what he did. Seducing women to get information about their husbands.

He had this Cassanova image which is sadly shattered when he meets the elusive Sydney Hunt and knows that he had met his match. Haunted by an abused childhood, Sydney had made it her life’s mission to protect the house helps that were often exploited by the nobility.

She had her own path to follow which made her often come across the Nexus members. While she knew about more than what they knew about her, yet even the notoriety of Ethan could not stop her from falling in love with him.

Both have secrets to tell and both had secrets to hide – the main conflict became that of trust. Who would trust first ? That is the cat and mouse game which they played throughout the story making the storyline complex, interesting and something which made me want to stay awake in the night – to finish the read.

What I liked…..

The storyline was very interesting with both the characters being equally strong, sparring words and at times weapons with each other. The attraction between them from the beginning was palpable and accelerated till the end…Phew!!! There is a spattering of many characters who must have all travelled from the previous book in this series. They all hold their own without me wanting to dig up their history.[that would have been very tiring.:) ]

Ratings…

What I didn’t like…

At the risqué of being termed a prude, I felt a bit startled with the love scenes. While the whole story was a bit prudish, the love scenes jarred a bit due to its boldness. There was a thin line between eroticism and love making.. And I do feel it bending towards the former. Well, it might be a selling point too…J

Secondly, it was a bit lengthy and the characters were dragged. The villains could have been made more dangerous and in front of the Nexus- the threat of the enemy diluted, thus diluting the conflict of the story.

Would I recommend this book? Definitely. This book is for keeps. For a rainy day, with a hot cup of tea… 

You can buy the book @
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Author Bio….

Tracey Devlyn writes historical romantic thrillers (translation: a slightly more grievous journey toward the heroine's happy ending). She's a co-founder of Romance University, a group blog dedicated to readers and writers of romance, and Lady Jane's Salon-Naperville, Chicagoland's exciting new reading salon devoted to romantic fiction.

An Illinois native, Tracey spends her evenings harassing her once-in-a-lifetime husband and her weekends torturing her characters. Her debut novel, Book 3 in the Nexus series, A LADY'S SECRET WEAPON, releases October 2013 (Book 1 - A Lady's Revenge, Book 2 Checkmate, My Lord).

She can be found @