The Blonde Who Came In from the Cold

Aug 7

If you haven’t read The Blonde Identity yet (review here), I’d recommend that one first. It had been on my TBR (to be read) list for a while, but the publisher offering me a digital review copy of this one is what final got me to pick it up. I’m so glad I did.

Alex Sterling has always been the strong one of the twins. She’s the one who grew up wearing black and watching spy movies. So it’s fitting that she joins the CIA in her early twenties. But before she’s even reached “The Farm” she has a run-in with Michael Kingsley, a man with a longtime CIA legacy and an eidetic memory. He doesn’t think she can cut it (or at least that’s what she thinks he thinks). The novel is told with a dual point of view and alternating timelines, showing Alex and King’s competition and past missions (often posing as a married couple, to their frustration).

I think I loved this book even more than the first one! The banter was even funnier, the storyline (while still implausible) was more believable because both main characters were spies, and I loved the cameos for Zoe and Sawyer. Work rivalry, longtime longing, and spy antics make this a romp! I even got a little misty-eyed in this one because if you read about a (fictional) man speak of how wrecked he was when the love of his life walked away, wouldn’t you get teary too?

This Ally Carter duo is so much fun. I didn’t know spy rom-com was a genre at all, let alone one I was missing out on. Adventurous, funny, a tad silly. I’m here for it!

A sidenote: The publisher did gift me a copy of the audiobook as well. I ended up choosing not to finish it at 27% because I was not vibing with the male narrator. If you’re already a fan of Andrew Eiden, then this audiobook would probably be great for you.