Book Review: Mistress Spy by Pamela Mingle

Madeline just wants to avenge her brother but when she’s captured she is offered two choices: become a spy for the queen or hang.  Maddy chooses to spy ending up in a maid’s position at the home of suspected traitors.

Nicholas is ready to go his own way after years of service to Queen Elizabeth but his plan changes with the arrival of a feisty beauty who betrayed her country but has a chance at redemption.

As tensions rise and a plot unfolds the two must find a way to put aside their differences and embrace the danger that fraught their world.  I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review and all opinions are my own.  This book’s publishing date is August 27th.

I cannot, in all honesty, say this book was fantastic.  It was mediocre and at best somewhat interesting.  Overall I found the book to be a boring and tedious affair.  I simply could not get into the tale and the only reason I finished the book was to find out the full plot put into place against the crown and whether Maddy and Nicholas managed to stop it.  The setting was somewhat intriguing but the characters were just blah.

The main characters, Maddy and Nicholas were boring to read about.  I never could feel the emotion that they carried and their interactions were so… I don’t know how to explain but they felt fake.  I don’t have anything against the characters but I just couldn’t see into their minds like I can in other books.  I hated reading about their characters and I wanted to put the book down so many times but I felt the need to finish what I started and I wanted to find out more about the plot to rescue Mary Queen of Scots.

The background and setting was the only intriguing part of this book.  There was a plot in place to rescue Mary Queen of Scots and I kept reading to find out whether the plan would come to fruition or not.  It was stopped and the book ended on a happy note.  However, I felt that the book was not completely historically accurate in the characters interactions and the phrases and words used throughout the book were too modern.  The idea for the setting was interesting but it could have been carried out better.

In the end, I could not stand the book and would give it a low rating.  I don’t think it’s worth the time it takes to read it and even if you do read it you will find yourself falling asleep.  Mistress Spy was boring, inaccurate, and hard to get through and I would recommend not reading this book.