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Book Review: Swamp Team 3

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Book: Swamp Team 3

Author: Jana Deleon

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(No Spoilers)

This is the fourth book in the series, and I’m not sure how long the series is planned to go. I’ve seen up to at least nine books.

I will give you fair warning. If you can’t overlook grammar and punctuation issues, this author is not for you. I realized after reading this book so closely to the other just how much I was over looking. Comma splices abound. Consider yourself warned.

I’m starting to think I’m not much of a series person. While the author does a great job of not rehashing the previous books, and this book can stand alone, I felt like it was missing something.

The story still revolves around Fortune Redding hiding out in in Sinful, Louisiana, because she has put a price on her head and a leak in the CIA. She’s been befriended by the Geritol Mafia, senior citizens Gertie and Ida Belle, who are former counter intelligence operatives and leaders of the Sinful Ladies Society. One of Fortune’s new Sinful friends has her home set on fire and is being stalked.

Yes, you get your usual hijinks, although those are starting to become less funny. A wet tee shirt contest? Really? I was also a little leery on the way the author treated the stalker. I’ve done zero research on stalkers, and even so, I found it hard to believe.  Still trying to figure out how Fortune survived as a CIA assassin given some of her antics and choices.

I also needed more to sell me on Fortune and the gang getting involved in solving the arson attempt. For some reason, this felt more disingenuous than in previous books. Why couldn’t Carter solve this? Why are they getting into the middle of a police investigation? In the other books this is more clear. In this one, it feels more like “my friend is involved, so hey, I can’t trust the law”. Carter even points out all the foolishness they went through and risks they took were for nothing when he already knew what a suspect was doing because, you know, that’s the first person he investigated, too. And he can do it lawfully.

The romance moved along a little, but as a reader of romance novels, this is moving so slowly that it might as well be non-existent.  Book four, and we’re still no closer to knowing any of Fortune’s backstory or what’s happening with the CIA. We are seeing some change in the heroine. Seeing her develop real friendships and have real feelings for the people in the town.

For me, I think the best thing is to take a break from the series for a while. These are not deep thought books. They will not withstand too deep of an analysis, and the more of them I read, the more my brain starts processing patterns and can’t simply relax and enjoy the book candy. It starts analyzing and dissecting, and these books can’t stand up to that. That’s okay. It’s not what they’re meant for. They are meant to be funny and an easy read on a rainy Saturday.

Book Review: Swamp Sniper

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Book: Swamp Sniper (Book 3 of the Miss Fortune series)

Author: Jana Deleon

Book1

(No Spoilers)

I’ve been working through this series, and I have to be careful to not devour them too quickly. Not sure how many books there are, but it’s nice that each is a contained story. At this point, you don’t need to have read the first two books to understand what’s going on or to enjoy the third installment.

The author does a nice job of writing a series. You get snippets of what happened in the past, but it’s no more than a few paragraphs sprinkled throughout the book.

This is a series, so the romance is moving at a snail’s pace. As is the back story on Fortune, the story’s protagonist.

This is a mystery novel, but with a lot of humor. Think Janet Evanovich. Starting to raise a brow, though, as this is the third murder investigation in as many weeks for the heroine. Looks like Sinful is getting to be more dangerous, per capita, than New Orleans. Unless, of course, my suspicion is correct about who the leak at the CIA is that put Fortune in sinful…

Fortune has been stashed in the backwater, rural Louisiana town of Sinful while the CIA tries to ferret out the leak that sold her out to some very bad men. While there, she’s befriended by some of the locals, including the Geritol Mafia. The premise of this book is that Fortune’s friend, Ida Belle, is accused of murdering Ted through poisoned cough syrup (moonshine).

Ted had been running against Ida Belle in the mayoral race, but that’s not a reason to kill anyone in Sinful. No motive is ever established as to why she’d want ted dead, but the real issue is the poison used to kill Ted happens to be the gopher killer that resides in Ida Bell’s shed. The story lost a little believability for me that there would be a solid case against Ida Bell as everyone knew the poison was there, and it wasn’t exactly locked up. Lots of people also had access to the cough syrup. But, I suspended disbelief as Gertie and Fortune try to prove Ida Belle’s innocence.

Carter, the deputy sheriff, doesn’t think that Ida Belle is the killer, but Sinful wants an arrest and so does the prosecutor. Of course he doesn’t want Gertie and Fortune investigating, and that adds to the hijinks.

This story is written in the same vein as the first two. It’s a fun, easy read. I appreciate that a lot. While I sometimes doubt how effective of a CIA assassin Fortune actually was, she doesn’t do anything I’d deem too stupid. I also appreciate that the author keeps the female characters strong and mostly competent. I love the cast of characters in this story, and even the secondary characters have a great deal of personality.

A good, easy read to make you smile and that you can finish in an evening.

Book Review: I Spy a Duke

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Rating: 2/5
Title: I Spy a Duke
Author: Erica Monroe

 

I was super excited by the premise of this book. It’s something I haven’t read before. Action. Romance. Spies. Sadly, the execution didn’t live up to the premise.

The Duke of Abermont, James, is a spymaster for the English Crown. The book opens with his sister dying after being tortured when she was caught by another spy. Gruesome opening to a romance novel. Would’ve probably been better to learn about that through the story itself so I cared more about the sister. Would’ve been easy to do as the next scene is James drinking on the anniversary of his sister’s death.

James is recently Duke as his father has just died. James is your typical brooding, powerful hero. Physically perfect and a deadly spy in his own right. Spymaster and Duke, oh my.

Vivien Loren’s brother was murdered, and the bow street runners didn’t bother with finding who killed him. She wants revenge and is willing to do anything to get it. Even bury logic and rationality.

For some reason, she believes a mysterious stranger who says he’ll tell her who murdered her brother. All she has to do is help him prove James is financing a revolution in France. She agrees. *eye roll*

Why would Sauveterre, clearly a French name, choose to appear French? Especially when he really is. Why would Vivien go along with it? Vengeance may be a powerful motive, but it’s clearly paired with blindness and stupidity. Not the traits that make a heroine particularly appealing.

The position of governess to James’s five-year-old brother has recently opened and it’s one of the first open positions in James’ household in years. Why would Sauveterre risk this with an unknown asset? Why not a French spy? Or at least a known quantity?

Vivien takes the position as governess, and lo and behold, is unable to find anything. Shocking! You sent an untrained innocent after someone you suspected was a spymaster. *eye roll*

So after 6 months in their employ, she finds James drinking to his sister’s death. Vivien joins him and drinks to her brother’s.

And just like that, James is in love with her and suddenly does a complete character reversal. For a man who’s promised to do everything in his power to serve crown and country, he is amazingly ready to throw it all away for a woman he barely knows. Especially as he’s vowed to never lose another agent after his sister.

And he fell in love with her after knowing her all of 10 minutes.

And James still loves her even after she reveals she was working for Sauveterre when Sauveterre threatens her life after she’s been unable to find anything.

He doesn’t kill her or turn her in. Because he loves her.

There is almost no interaction between them after drinking to dead loved ones to her revelation that she’s been working for the French. But our born and raised spymaster still loves her. After one drink…

Not only does James not deal with her as you’d expect from a spymaster, but he then proposes marriage to her. What?!? A shared glass of brandy, her bandaging his hand and talking about their dead siblings for 10 minutes and he’s in love…with someone that was spying on him.?!? Albeit she was spying badly, but still she was spying for the French.

He overcomes his sisters’ reticence to this highly scandalous marriage (she’s his brother’s governess). We have some narrative filler, they get married.

Then he tells her the truth about him as they head out to a safe house so he can train her to be a spy. Except, maybe she won’t want to be…more fluff and filler. There is no real tension between them, there is no real romance, and there are no real obstacles.

She just has to wrap her brain around his being a spy. Governess to duchess and now to being a spy herself…

We see him work with her, train with her, teach her self defense.

Somehow Sauveterre finds the safe house. How is never revealed. This was supposed to be the super safest of safe houses…Never did figure out why Sauveterre knew James would take her there, either. Sauveterre makes some comments about it all being part of his plan… Apparently, he knew James was stupid enough to marry her, wait, no he didn’t, because he admits that too…

Battle scene and then happily ever after ending with Vivian becoming a spy in 3 months. Um, yeah. Sure.

 

How to make it 5 stars
The author needs to be true to James. How he can forgive the heroine and risk his entire organization for her, I don’t understand. I also don’t see him falling in love so quickly.

Might have been better to give Vivian some knowledge from her dead brother she doesn’t know she has. That’s why the French spy wants her. Except he wants her alive to torture the information from her.

Now we fall back on James wanting to protect her, keep an innocent safe (rather than a woman who ignored reason and worked for a French spy) while he tries to figure out what she knows that’s useful to the French. Gives a reason to keep the characters together and gives them time to fall in love.

We need more romantic tension. The love between them needs to grow rather than just poof into existence.

Also, the villain needs more. Why would he be so foolish one moment by bringing in an outsider to a difficult and sensitive job, then the next moment be able to find the safest of English safe houses?

Author also needs to tidy up things. Such as in one scene James telling Vivien not to leave the house for fear of Sauveterre, then the next sending her into town so James can talk to his sisters.