About the Book:
After five unsuccessful Seasons on the marriage mart, Miss Adelaide Duveen has resigned herself to the notion that she’s destined to remain a spinster forever–a rather dismal prospect, but one that will allow her to concentrate on her darling cats and books. However, when she inadvertently stumbles upon Mr. Gideon Abbott engaged in a clandestine activity during a dinner party, Adelaide finds herself thrust into a world of intrigue that resembles the plots in the spy novels she devours.
Former intelligence agent Gideon Abbott feels responsible for Adelaide after society threatens to banish her because of the distraction she caused to save his investigation. Hoping to return the favor, he turns to a good friend–and one of high society’s leaders–to take Adelaide in hand and turn her fashionable. When danger surrounds them and Adelaide finds herself a target of the criminals in Gideon’s case, the spark of love between them threatens to be quenched for good–along with their lives.
Book Review
I have loved every Jen Turano book I have read. And that’s a lot of them. Turano is a genius at weaving in humor with reality with suspense with romance. Each character is colorful, each mystery is enthralling, each romance is heart-stopping. She is truly a master writer.
All that being said, I could not get into her latest novel, To Spark a Match. I loved Adelaide in the first book of The Matchmakers series, A Match in the Making, and was beyond excited to explore this character further. I had such high expectations for this book, as I do every Jen Turano book, and none of them were met in the way I had hoped. The premise of the story sounds intriguing. But I had such a hard time getting through it.
The characters were one-dimensional. Neither Gideon nor Adelaide had much to their character. All we really know about Gideon is that he is an intelligence agent who is also a part of the Four Hundred. And Adelaide, she likes cats and reading, is always finding herself in some interesting situations, and that she is incredibly stubborn. So stubborn, in fact, that she and Gideon have the same conversation over and over again that it became too much–Adelaide wants to become an intelligence agent, Gideon says no, Adelaide does not take no for an answer and continues to bug him about it. It got to be too much.
I liked that there was a mystery. But it didn’t interest me enough, and maybe that’s because this book in and of itself read more like a fluff novel to me. I am not a huge fan of fluffy romances myself, but if you are a fan of them, I would highly recommend this one. It is a good book if you want to escape. But for me, I prefer my characters to have more depth and the mystery to be more exciting and suspenseful.
This book will not deter me from reading future Jen Turano novels. Again, Jen Turano is a brilliant writer with a knack for humor. And this one was just a miss for me, but it could be a great novel for you, especially if you want something more light.
I had received a complimentary copy of the book and this is my honest review.
