I dont’ remember the love scenes at all at this point, which may tell you something :-) – or it may not, because my memory for most aspects of a romance is about 36 hours at this point, and that’s true even of romances I really like. But I think at this point in my reading career, love scenes never really stand out unless I’m already quite emotionally invested in the h/h. Because of the problems I had with ML&S, I wasn’t able to achieve that level of attachment, so I doubt I had much reaction either way (though if Sebastian thought again about all he had to teach Jess, I’m sure I rolled my eyes a bit).

I really got into this book. I love being in the spy world that Bourne creates, and while, intellectually, I see some of the points being made here, as well as the gripes on TSL, oh, I don’t know, I found myself thoroughly enchanted. Again!

There are certainly books that I feel that way about. I love the sometimes-maligned early Patricia Gaffney romance Lily. Sometimes I think I have sort of a tipping point beyond which I can’t be very critical of a book, because I feel, as you put it, “thoroughly enchanted”. It’s like being really, really in love – you might understand intellectually that your beloved has faults, but they don’t bother you because he’s just so dreamy!

Obviously, I haven’t felt that way about either of Bourne’s books. I don’t think it’s just that they don’t quite make it over that tipping point into total enchantment; I think it’s specifically the flaws they possess which bother me more than they might bother another reader.

In a way, Bourne really is hard for me to grade, because I appreciate that there is intelligence in the writing of these books, and that they aren’t rote or cookie-cutter. Considering how much I complain about rote, cookie-cutter romances and uninspired writing, it pains me to give Bourne a C. But I can only grade based on how much I liked a book as a whole – I can absolutely see why she’d be an auto-buy for other readers (and there are a few popular authors I could never say that about!).

However, to some extent it’s like saying that the chocolate raspberry cake didn’t have enough of the gooey chocolate versus the rice cakes which were bland and tasteless.

I haven’t read the book but my problem with chocolate raspberry cake is that I love chocolate but hate raspberries. I always wish it didn’t have the raspberries in it.

And that’s a pretty good metaphor for the way I felt about The Spymaster’s Lady — loved the prose and the unusual set up, but was very frustrated by the unequal power dynamics and even more so, by the way I felt Annique was presented as something that she wasn’t.