August 17, 2015

REVIEW: The Spy Who Tamed Me by Kelly Hunter

KaetrinB+ Reviews / Recommended ReadsAustralia / Contemporary / spies8 Comments

Dear Kelly Hunter,

The Spy Who Tamed Me is the fourth and final book in your Wests series. As it happens, I have the other three on Mt. TBR but haven’t managed to get to them yet. I think there are some aspects of the story which would have made more sense/been more enjoyable for me had I read the earlier books first and there are some spoilers – particular for Lena and Trig, but this book does work as a stand alone very well.

Jared West is the eldest of the wealthy West siblings. He is a spy for the Australian Secret Intelligence Service and has been deep undercover for two years. He resurfaces at the start of this book, injured, having escaped a burning boat, a beating and hot pursuit, in true James Bond (but nicer) fashion. He made it, barely, to his sister Lena’s wedding but passed out shortly after. Rowan Farringdon is a section Director at ASIS and, because Jared’s director is unavailable, she steps in.

Rowan is a 40 year old career woman. She works 80+ hour weeks and doesn’t have much time for a social life or relationships. Her parents are career diplomats and she has a strained and distant relationship with them, having been basically raised by her military grandfather (who, delightfully, has a 50 year old tortoise named Veronica). Rowan is at the top of her game and is headed for the top job in ASIS. Then she meets Jared West.

Jared is 30, gorgeous, charming and, after years of deep cover work, seriously touch-starved. Even so, when he meets Rowan he knows she is more to him than someone to scratch an itch.

Jared and Rowan flirt and banter with each other as he is treated, transported to ASIS headquarters in Canberra and then debriefed. Jared is coy about the information he passes on – circumstances meant that he doesn’t yet have the final piece in the puzzle – the name of the mole high up in ASIS. Rowan has her suspicions and agrees to let Jared go back in the field to glean the last piece of information.

Then there is the question of what he will do next – stay with ASIS? Or something else?

As Rowan and Jared circle each other personally and work together professionally, their attraction grows. The first time they hook up has a touch of the femdom about it – a surprise to Jared but just what he needs at the time.

Rowan is very well put together – she’s comfortable in her skin and with her needs and desires. She is concerned about their age difference but a frank discussion takes care of any issues there – Jared wants Rowan and he will take her any way he can get her. He isn’t worried about her age, her job, whether or not she wants children – he just wants to be with her.

He curled his hands around her thighs once he’d finished exploring every dip of her back. He lifted her to his mouth and for a while she thought he might be a sex god. And then he released her, and then blanketed her again as he slid into her, slow and easy, and then she could have sworn he was a sex god.

Rowan finds in Jared a connection she hasn’t known before and in his family a level of kinship outside her experience. She is absorbed into the West clan with ease and she has a taste of a different kind of life. Still, she is an ambitious and scarily competent woman. I appreciated that Jared respected her expertise and her position. He was occasionally cocky but he knew when he was speaking to the Director and what that meant.

A cry for help calls Jared back into the field and, given he is doing this without the sanction (or knowledge) of ASIS, he necessarily has to keep it from her. This causes the relationship’s black moment and both protagonists have to examine themselves and their behaviour and make changes if they are to go forward together.

I loved the witty banter and the clear connection Rowan and Jared had. Jared is young but his work has made him older than his years and he came across to me as mature and a fitting match for Rowan. I probably could have done without the last little bit and the epilogue which, while it wrapped the series up nicely, felt a little to heteronormative. Up until then I had been enjoying the way Rowan and Jared had arranged things to suit her busy and important job. That said, I also appreciated that Rowan made decisions that were right for her and the life she wanted and which utilised her talents as well.

The book is only about 130 pages, so it’s not a long read but it manages to convey all the necessarily ingredients for a really satisfying and entertaining romance. I really must get to those earlier West books now…

Grade: B+ and a recommended read.

Regards,
Kaetrin

*I used the Australian cover because I prefer it – though neither gets Rowan exactly right – a woman with pixie-short hair whose ears stick out just that little bit (according to Jared, or, according to Rowan, rather a lot). At least on the Australian cover you can see her ears (well, one of them).

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Kaetrin

Kaetrin started reading romance as a teen and then took a long break, detouring into fantasy and thrillers. She returned to romance in 2008 and has been blogging since 2010. She reads contemporary, historical, a little paranormal, urban fantasy and romantic suspense, as well as erotic romance and more recently, new adult. She loves angsty books, funny books, long books and short books. The only thing mandatory is the HEA. Favourite authors include Mary Balogh, Susanna Kearsley, Joanna Bourne, Tammara Webber, Kristen Ashley, Shannon Stacey, Sarah Mayberry, JD Robb/Nora Roberts, KA Mitchell, Marie Sexton, Patricia Briggs, Ilona Andrews, just to name a few. You can find her on Twitter: @kaetrin67.

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Comments

Sirius
August 17, 2015 @ 11:35 am
I read your review in Q, loved it, bought it. Drawn to the women of the position of power in romances, mostly end up disappointed based on what the writers do to them previously being in the position of power. Should have known based on what you said about the ending :(. I only lasted two or three chapters before reading the ending so maybe I misinterpreted it and will definitely finish it, but right now this is an Exhibit A of why I find so few m/f romances I enjoyed (I do not *only* try romances about women in power do not get me wrong, but this is one of my temptations).
Li
August 17, 2015 @ 3:32 pm
I love Kelly Hunter’s writing – she makes categories work!
I agree with you re the ending, especially as she’d been pushing the boundaries throughout. I also struggled a bit with the workplace dynamics. But I really really like how Hunter’s characters just spark off each other.
Jayne
August 17, 2015 @ 6:31 pm
I hadn’t even noticed that both M&B and Harlequin covers are in the review – one on the main page and one here on the review. I like! Since I enjoyed the first and third books in the series (need to go back and read the second one) at some point I will read this one. Your review has certainly whetted my appetite.
Kaetrin
August 17, 2015 @ 7:55 pm

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@Sirius: Yeah, I had mixed feelings about it.
Buried Comment: Show
Pros: she still was absolutely doing what she wanted to do and prioritising her own desires and ambitions and she was still actively using her skills and LEADING. She was going to be in charge and Jared had no problem at all with that. Cons: her new direction meant that she had no chance to be Director of ASIS and on one view, it was a step down. She was ambivalent about children of her own and I could buy that she changed her mind (people do) but I’d almost have preferred her to stick with her original decision rather than go down the “traditional route”. I think the set up in terms of character was there to allow her to do what she did and still fit. But it turned out that a rather non-traditional heroine went a little traditional in the end and that’s the aspect I had mixed feelings about.
@Li: Yes! She is excellent at contemporaries. She packs so much into the story and makes each word count I think.
@Jayne: I originally had the US cover in the review and then changed it – that must be why both are showing – so it was purely an accident! LOL
Sirius
August 18, 2015 @ 8:31 pm

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@Kaetrin: Okay I finished and loved everything but the ending – I feel a little better but not much
Buried Comment: Show
I actually felt less annoyed about “want to make a baby” than her job situation. Not that I would not have preferred for her to not change her mind, I definitely would but as you said people change their minds. Re: job I know I should be grateful that the author came up with the solution for her to let her not quit completely, BUT I thought about it and I decided that I am mostly annoyed because for somebody in her position to go freelance just sounds so “fake” if that makes sense. There are plenty of jobs where I would have been okay with her “going freelance” because it sounded plausible, here? She just can’t do the same work as she was doing when she was working full time, because her charges are working full time, whose work will she be overseeing? I am aware that she suggested “retrieval missions”, but what the heck does that even mean? Wouldn’t full time people be involved first and foremost, those who are familiar with the situation, those who had been monitoring the person before? So yeah, felt fake to me and for somebody who wanted to run her own team since she was fifteen, no, just no.
Kaetrin
August 18, 2015 @ 9:01 pm

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@Sirius: My understanding was that
Buried Comment: Show
Rowan would lead a specialist team consisting of Jared and other people who weren’t working full time elsewhere – maybe other West family members, maybe contacts Rowan had elsewhere in the spy biz. They would do one-off jobs for ASIS like a contractor. I gather that “retrieval” is about when someone is kidnapped, they would go and get them, or they would extract someone like the way they extracted the child in this book, or maybe even some rare/valuable object. In this context, I think “freelance” meant “contractor”. I don’t know if this is plausible or not but I was prepared to go with it for the story. I think that in this way, Rowan would be able to use her skills managing field agents and Jared would be able to go into the field – but that it would be occasional work rather than full time. I expect when they are actually working they will be working non-stop until the job is done. Does that make sense?
Sirius
August 19, 2015 @ 2:29 pm

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@Kaetrin: Thanks!I don’t know much or anything about spy business, but it did not seem very believable to me
Buried Comment: Show
just felt like spy work of that caliber is full time work and considering how many times Rowan was on call throughout the weekend and had to put long shifts, I just don’t know if I can go along with it. Having said that, I feel a little bit better after your explanation because I definitely misunderstood – I did not think that they will be working full time while doing the job.
. I really did like a lot about this book – the dialogue was awesome and I loved the characters, just wished ending would have been just as strong (for me).
Kaetrin
August 19, 2015 @ 11:07 pm

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@Sirius:
Buried Comment: Show
I think it’s jobs like what Jared did with Antonov’s son, so specific tasks rather than ongoing things
but I basically agree with you – the ending wasn’t *quite* as strong as I’d have liked it to be.
Is it just me or does the US cover look like it says “The Spy Who Tamed Me & Kelly Hunter”?? :D