Early Review of Karen Hawkins' A Most Dangerous Profession

Title: A Most Dangerous Profession (Hurst Amulet #3)

Author: Karen Hawkins

Publisher: Pocket Books

Format: Mass Market Paperback & eBook

Source: Purchased

Publication Date: October 18, 2011

Rating: 4 out of 5

Karen Hawkins is one of my favorite historical romance authors, and I love to recommend her books, because they’re always funny and appealing. You can imagine my excitement, then, when I discovered an early copy of A Most Dangerous Profession at the Barnes & Noble this weekend. This is the third book in the Hurst Amulet series if you don’t count the prequel, Much Ado About Marriage, and even if you haven’t read any of the other novels in the series, you’ll be able to enjoy this lighthearted romance without difficulty.

Moira MacAllister has a long-standing history with Robert Hurst: she tricked him into marriage more than five years ago when he was investigating her at the behest of the Home Office. She’s joined the search for the three onyx boxes that will lead Robert’s family to the Hurst Amulet, but her interest in the boxes is fueled by desperation rather than avarice. Blackmailer George Aniston is forcing her to recover the boxes by holding captive her five year old daughter, Rowena. What Robert doesn’t realize is that Rowena is his daughter and the reason Moira tricked him into marriage all those years ago. Since Robert’s brother Michael’s safety depends on his recovering the onyx box, Robert can’t allow Moira to abscond with the relic, but he also finds it harder and harder to resist her charms. When the two decide to work together, sparks fly, giving Moira hope that the two can reunite, but as time progresses she begins to wonder if Robert will ever be able to forgive her original deception.

One of the reasons I enjoy Ms. Hawkins’ books so much is that she writes characters who aren’t aristocrats, and A Most Dangerous Profession is no exception. Her female characters are interesting and complex rather than insipid debutantes sipping tea and making social calls. Moira was born into the working class, but was raised by a gypsy, which makes it easy to understand Robert’s fascination with her. He, too, is not from the aristocracy, since he’s a son of a vicar, but he makes a living selling the artifacts that his explorer brother Michael unearths during his travels. Robert’s work as a spy also gives his character a dangerous edge, an aspect that appeals to Moira’s sense of adventure. The sexual tension between them smolders and adds some sizzle to the already fraught situation with their daughter.

While the first half of the book seemed to drag a little, the action and chemistry definitely picked up in the second half. Once they arrive at Balnagown castle to retrieve the third onyx box, Moira and Robert work together, and the book is irresistible from that point. The two work together effortlessly, and you’ll enjoy watching Robert learn to appreciate Moira’s abilities as a spy, while they grow closer together as a couple emotionally and physically.

I do have a few criticisms of the book. My first is that initially the book shares a few similarities with the second book in the series, Scandal in Scotland. Both Moira and Marcail betrayed the Hurst brothers, were quite improper, and are reunited with the brothers because of secrets in their pasts. Once I read farther into the third novel, however, the books differed enough that it didn’t bother me as much as it had at first. Another minor complaint has to do with Rowena, Moira and Robert's daughter. She barely appears in the book, which is fine, but in the epilogue she addresses her mother in a manner that seemed completely unlike a five year old, which had me checking back to see if she was actually older than I originally thought.

My most serious complaint, however, is that I want MORE!!! And I don’t mean more novels (although I definitely want more of those as well); I mean the font is so large that the book seems really, really short. I think Ms. Hawkins could have easily extended the book by including flashbacks to Moira and Robert’s time together, plus the final confrontation with George Aniston went by far too quickly, ending the book abruptly.  I don’t want to mislead you into thinking that A Most Dangerous Profession is not a complete book, because it is (and it’s completely enchanting), but I’m bothered that publishers seem to be making historical romances shorter by enlarging the font while keeping the page count the same.

That said, Ms. Hawkins is always an auto-buy for me, and this is another keeper. I really enjoy the excerpts from letters and diaries at the beginning of each chapter, since they advance the overarching story of the series. If you enjoy engaging historical romances that focus on characters not from the aristocracy, I definitely recommend A Most Dangerous Profession.

Review of Revenge of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz

Title: Revenge of the Spellmans (Spellmans #3)

Author: Lisa Lutz

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Formats: Hardcover, Trade Paperback & Ebook

Source: Won from Goodreads’ First Reads

Publication Date: 2009

Rating: 4 out of 5

One of the reasons I enjoy Goodreads’ First Reads program is that I can enter contests to win books I normally wouldn’t pick up, thus discovering new authors in different genres. Sometimes this backfires (see my review of The Medusa Amulet), but since I spent last night laughing like a hyena and scaring the dog, I think we can safely say my plan worked out great with Lisa Lutz’s Revenge of the Spellmans. This book was so funny in places that I had to stop reading because I was tearing up from laughing so hard.

Revenge of the Spellmans is billed as a mystery, but to me the biggest mystery is how Isabel “Izzy” Spellman has managed to live 31 years without strangling someone in her family. Izzy’s family owns a PI firm in San Francisco, but as the book begins Izzy is taking a break by working as a bartender and attending court-ordered therapy sessions. When her boss at the bar asks her to look into a friend’s case as a favor, Izzy reluctantly agrees, but what at first seems to be a simple case of a husband suspecting a wife of cheating soon becomes far more elaborate.

What makes this book so unusual is that most of the book is focused on small mysteries within the family. Izzy wants to know why her perfect lawyer brother David is acting so unusual, her younger sister Rae keeps relocating Izzy’s car without permission, and her father keeps insisting on having lunch with her. This family is probably certifiably insane, and in the real world these people would drive you NUTS, but within the pages of this book the Spellmans are hilarious.

My absolute favorite scene has to be when Izzy recounts the first job interview she ever had. Even though she’d been working off the books for her parents since she was 12, her father insisted on having a job interview when Izzy turned 15. Honestly, I think I found this scene so funny, because I can TOTALLY see my Dad doing this. Unfortunately, I resemble uptight lawyer brother David more than Izzy, so I would have played along. Izzy doesn’t, and just thinking about the scene makes me snicker. She’s quite the smartass, and while at times that definitely gets in the way of her developing relationships with other people, it creates some hysterical moments within the family. When her Dad (Albert) calls her from the office and tells 15 year old Izzy to “Dress appropriately, Ms. Spellman”, Izzy dresses up in her brother’s old nerd costume and packs a lunch in his briefcase. When the interview begins, she breaks out a napkin and starts eating. Really, I was crying by this point. But my favorite lines come at the end of the interview, which I have to quote here:

ALBERT: Why should we hire you?

ISABEL: Do I need to remind you that I already work here?

ALBERT: Tell me how you can contribute to our organization.

ISABEL: Please. Just let me drink the Kool-Aid.

ALBERT: That’s it, Isabel. Get out of here!

ISABEL: It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Melman.

Ms. Lutz varies the narration in a lot of different ways, including transcripts from Izzy’s court-ordered therapy sessions, more traditionally narrated passages, appendices, case files, and flashbacks like the one I just mentioned. The back and forth between the family mysteries and the ones Izzy is hired to solve mesh perfectly, while the snarky footnotes help make this book a winner.

My only criticism is that the actual mysteries Izzy has to solve really aren’t that interesting to me. The family dynamic is what keeps you turning the pages and wanting more. I think if you know that going in, you’re really going to love this book, but if you’re looking for a gritty, hardcore mystery, this is probably not the book for you. I’m also not thrilled by the cover art, but it seems in keeping with other books in the genre, such as the Stephanie Plum books by Janet Evanovich, so I’m sure that was intentional.

In the end, this was a lot of fun to read, and I’ll definitely be catching up on the series before the fifth book is released in February. If you’re the mood for a good laugh, you really can’t go wrong with Revenge of the Spellmans.