British intelligence wants her spying skills. A vampiric warlock wants to steal her powers. The Master Wizards who trained her want her dead…Nazis have unleashed occult forces throughout Europe, and the Allies are forced to recruit wizards to counter their attacks.Among them is the battle weary spy, Isabella George, a Gray Tower dropout trained in Alchemy. Longing for retirement and a life of … retirement and a life of peace, she accepts one final job–extract a deadly warlock from Nazi-occupied France and prevent him from unleashing an alchemical weapon that will devour the continent.
But France is crawling with the Cruenti, vampiric warlocks who feed off other wizards. When things don’t go according to plan, one Cruenti sets his deadly eyes on her.
Betrayal is everywhere. Even some of Isabella’s closest allies cannot be fully trusted. Worse still, she finds, she can’t even trust herself. She becomes a woman torn between her charismatic spy lover who offers her what she desires most, and one of her closest confidants, whose soft seductive eyes hold deadly secrets about her past, and the Gray Tower itself.
Plans within plans. Plots versus counter plots. Heists gone wrong, Vatican wizards, and the greatest manipulation of history that has ever been seen, is just a taste of what Isabella George is in for, in her final mission.
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The world: this is an alternate history. German forces are expanding across Europe during WW2, and they have taken France. However, in this case, spell-casters have developed weapons that allow the German army to lay a plague upon the countries.
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The magic: The wizards have different abilities like alchemy (duh) and healing. Isabella is trained as a spy, but her body magic and alchemy give her an edge in dismantling German technology. There are other wizards who are part of an organization called the Gray Tower, and the training seems to mimic the Nazi idea of conformity and loss of individualism. Then there are the Cruenti: people who steal powers and murder, but are known to become unstable and violent. The worst turn into the Black Wolves, a half-wolf form that is solely a murder weapon. I love the concept, but I wish Isabel had a limit. Every time she ran out of power or was too tired to go on, she went on. Huh?
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The Romance: The U.S. might not have declared war yet, but Isabel is already tired and ready for retirement. Her dearest wish is to find lasting love and settle down. On the way, she first meets Ken, another spy, and then Brante from the Gray Tower. This is not a reverse harem. Rather, it is a painful exploration of love, distrust, and love lost. At 52% I was utterly shocked at the turn in the romance. Ken was a loyal lover even if he was on a different team. Brante is the guy Isabel had a major crush on, and now he crushes on her. It is sweet. Then there is the Cruenti Marc. Obviously egotistical, murderous, and lacking empathy, he finds Isabel a worthy match…but I don’t know if that will be explored more in the second novel.
In his words: “That reminds me, I ran into his daughter a few days ago. She lit me on fire, shot me, and tried to make my heart explode. I like her.”
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The Plot: It was longer than I usually like. However, with the explosions, sword fights, angst, spying, etc. I just could not stop. It feels like the best James Bond movie in a book. The ending was soft, but had a twist. Keep reading even if it slows down for you.
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—single POV
—Wonderful secondary characters
—Angsty
Despite the beginning of the book being packed with action I got bored pretty quickly. The dizzying array of characters that were introduced and the multiple code names that they had made me think of making a spreadsheet so I could keep them all straight. The timelines jumping around didn’t help matters either.
As a spy Isabella had several TSTL moments that isn’t in keeping with what you would think a spy should be. Her poker face needs work if someone can get a reaction from you by using your real name, you are supposed to think on your feet and be ready for anything as a spy…or maybe that’s my interpretation of what an effective spy should be.
The bits of magic that was employed got me excited only to have that excitement take a back seat as it wasn’t used as much as I would have liked.
There were a few characters that had a nice and easy flow and feel to them. However, the bad guys were at times over the top. Too many modern terms made their way into the story totally throwing off the time period that the story was supposed to be happening in. Plus, the pacing went from action, action to plodding, repetitive then spurts of action to more plodding.
Remove some of the characters and the elements, keep the pacing steady, don’t go caricature with the bad guys and a bit more magic and I think this story would have done better with keeping my interest. While not a bad read, it’s just a very convoluted read.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
She has had enough and she wants to retire and live in peace but it is looking unlikely. She is asked to go on one last mission to rescue them but it is not going to be easy as she will need to get pass so many dangers. Can she get to them in time? Will she be able to save them? Will she finally get what she wants, retirement? See if she does
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
I truly enjoyed this book. Alesha Escobar is a wonderful storyteller and weaves an alternate world where magic is commonplace and those than wield it hold the world in the balance.
The story takes place during an alternate World War II and starts with people trying to kill our heroine, who goes by many, many names. The story will take you from battle to battle, with few breathers in between. Filled with mysteries and betrayal, the main character must make her way through France, complete her mission, and not get killed in the process. Did I mention that she seems to grown enemies as quickly as she loses allies?
To add to that, I loved the way the book ended. It had a twist ending I would have never seen coming, and yet made total sense in hind sight.
The only thing I did not like about this novel was the editing. Though the book was edited well enough for me to read and review it, it did take longer than usual for me to read and the errors were plentiful, though they rarely detracted from the reading (unless you’re an editor, in which case you can’t help but notice). The errors I found were almost always systematic, meaning she made the same mistakes throughout the entire novel. With a proper editor, this book would have been well worth five stars.
Source: Gifted by Author
eReader: Stanza for iPad
File type: ePub
Awesome. this book is a combination of an alternate history where adepts align themselves with the Axis and The Allies. It is The Gray Tower vs the Black Wolves. The Wolves use blood Magic. This history is not like what happened in our world.
It’s an exciting tale.