For me it’s the busiest time of year – competition season is in full swing, so riding, competing, judging and coaching are keeping me manically busy. With the travelling, often by air, and nights in hotels, it does mean I get to do more reading than at other times of year (not so conducive for writing, sadly), hence most of my posts just now are reviews.
And here is the next one!
This is the first in a large (15 book) series, and I picked this up as a freebie as it promised to be a fun and easy read. To quote one of the many existing reviews, ‘Implausible to the max! but entertaining‘
The Housewife Assassin’s Handbook by Josie Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Donna Stone is a widow with a rather unusual job to support her family – she’s an assassin for the CIA. She fits assignments around the social whirl of trying to be a good parent, though she’s decidedly better at her job than at being a supermom.
I wasn’t sure at the beginning of the book – okay, so it’s supposed to be a light and fluffy read, but even so, I found the opening scene with handcuffs, Viagra, a mafia boss and an assassination a bit hard core, but I read on to give it a chance, and I’m glad I did. While Donna’s attempts to mesh her two lives together sometimes stretch credulity rather excessively, the story races along easily, and there are plenty of laughs, especially with the catty mothers who rule the school social affairs, and the guy who is brought in to pretend to be her husband.
On the downside, the housewife’s tips at the start of each chapter are inane to the point of annoyance (I stopped reading them), and there are an irritating number of typos, particularly in the earlier chapters. Plus, although there is a climax to this story, the ongoing thread is a pretty big one – so not technically a cliff hanger, but skirting pretty close to it.
Having said all that, I did still enjoy it (once I got over that beginning) so ff you are looking for something easy to read that won’t engage your brain too far, and you’re okay with sex and violence mixed in with humour and a non-challenging plot, then you may well enjoy it. I’m not rushing out to buy the next one (this one is free), but I may do so at some point when I want to switch my brain into a lower gear.
View all my reviews
Since writing this review, I have discovered that the second in series is also free, so I’ve just downloaded it ready for a brain-dead time.
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