Book Review: A Spy in the House

TITLE: A Spy in the House
Book 1 in The Agency series
AUTHOR: Y.S. Lee
PUBLISHED: 2010
CATEGORY: Young adult
GENRE: Historical fiction, mystery
PREMISE: In victorian england Mary is taken under the wing of The Agency, a group of women spies. Her first case is to investigate a company suspected of illegal wrongs.
MY REVIEW: First the bad: obviously this is not terribly realistic. It would be wonderful if it was, but as the author said it's not. Second, the authors writing wavers a lot. Sometimes it's good (her dialogue is wonderful), sometimes it fell to old trap of telling and not showing, and then sometimes the book itself lagged.
But for the most part I enjoyed this. Mary is a great heroine (a bit Sueish but I'm hoping that's because it's the first book and her character hasn't been fully developed yet). The setting is also great and author actually did research on Victorian times and how people operated. But the really great thing about this book was Mary and James together. It didn't even matter if they were kissing (which they did very little of), when they were together their personalities sparked and watching them deal with each other was thoroughly entertaining.
I for one am looking forward to the next book which comes out later this month (fast writing girl, keep it up!). If you're in the mood for a fun victorian mystery that has entertaining snarking going on, this book is for you.
WHO SHOULD READ: fans of the Gemma Doyle trilogy, victorian england fans, mystery fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five ladies gloves

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