Vivienne Le Fleur is one of London’s most sought after opera dancer and one of England’s best weapons: the spy known as the Flower. When a French agent pressures her to change allegiance by abducting her sister, Vivienne is forced to seek the help of the only man in London who doesn’t want her. Maximilian Westwood, retired code breaker, doesn’t like surprises or mysteries and The Flower is both. … Flower is both. When she sneaks into his study in the middle of the night with a coded message, he’s ready to push her out whatever window she arrived through. Except Maximilian is unable to turn away a woman in trouble. Determined to rescue Vivienne’s sister, they engage in a game of cat and mouse with French spies that requires all of Vivienne’s training and Maximilian’s abilities. Bound together by secrecy, they discover there is more between them than politics and hidden codes, but love has no place among the secrets of espionage…
Each book in the Spy in the Ton series is STANDALONE.
* A Dance with Seduction
* The Lady and Mr. Jones
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A Dance With Seduction is a spectacular historical romance by Alyssa Alexander. Ms. Alexander has provided readers with a well-written book populated with a phenomenal cast of characters. Maximilian no longer works as a code breaker for His Majesty. Vivienne, Mademoiselle La Fleur, is a pick-pocket, dancer and spy. She still manages to show up in Maximilian’s study when she needs a code breaker. Their story has loads of drama, humor, sizzle, action, suspense and more twists and turns than a road map. I enjoyed reading this book and look forward to my next book by Alyssa Alexander. A Dance With Seduction is book 3 of the Spy in the Ton Series but it can be read as a standalone. This is a complete book, not a cliff-hanger.
I actually loved the story line with a female spy who was lethal vs one who swoons at the drop of a hat. The picture of Max was almost a stick in the mud before he started interacting with Vivienne. She brought him to life in the story. Henri just gave me the creeps, but loved Jones! Hopefully something happens to Max’s brother, he deserves it! The story progressed pretty quickly with their search for her sister after she was kidnapped. What I had a hard time with was the woman never slept. She was either out on an assignment all night, searching for Anne, dancing on stage, or with Max. Hard to believe she would have that much energy to keep going! Otherwise, pretty awesome read.
Rating is actually 3.5 Stars
This is my first book by Alyssa Alexander. After looking at reviews of the other books in this series, I may go back and read them.
I seem to be all over the place with this book. I love spy stories and I think code-breakers are some of the unsung heroes of war. This book has both and the premise of the story was a good one. I just felt that it frequently moved too slowly.
Maximilian Westwood is a second son who makes his living doing translations in the several languages he speaks. He is also a retired code-breaker for the crown. He is taciturn, growly, frowning and totally engrossed in his translations. Max is the most honorable man you could ever want to meet. That is his nature and it is also to contrast his disreputable older brother.
Vivienne Le Fleur is a British spy. She has been trained since she was a child in all of the skills to become the consummate spy. She is superb with all weapons – pistols, knives, swords, etc. The Flower is an opera dancer and the mistress of Henri. She is also totally immersed in the persona she had to adopt in order to facilitate her spying. She is so immersed that she no longer knows where that persona ends and where the real ‘her’ begins.
Henri is the handler for Vivienne, The Flower, and I won’t say much about him other than to say that he’s a real jerk.
A French spymaster known as The Vulture wants to recruit the Flower and turn her into a double agent by any means – fair or foul – mostly foul. When she won’t turn, he kidnaps her sister to force her to do her bidding.
Flower worked with Max when he was a government code-breaker and she trusted him – at least as much as she trusted anyone. So, when she needed to have the Vulture’s coded messages deciphered, she went to him. They end up working together to solve the mystery.
What I really didn’t like really didn’t have much to do with the story – Max’s brother was really detestable and I would have loved it if something irreversible had happened to him. He could die or he could go insane or . . . Well, I just didn’t care, but it would have been nice for Max to take over the title or at least the management of the estate.
I also didn’t like that there was no real, lasting punishment for Henri. Somebody other than the Flower should have taken him on!
“I requested and received this book at no cost to me and volunteered to read it; my review is my honest opinion and given without any influence by the author or publisher.”