Review: Novella Fell Apart after the First Half
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 06 29, 2013
Tamsyn Moody's husband made it home to die in front of her. He'd been good to her, but he had been fifteen years older, and she had never loved him. His dying request was that she take a letter to General Lee at Appomattox to prevent him from surrendering. It was only then that Tamsyn realized Ben was a spy. When she's caught with the letter, she's taken to General James Steele. James just wants the war to end, so he can go home to Boston. This beautiful rebel might just change all his plans, however.THE REBEL SPY started out with such promise. I liked the cover, historical romance is my favorite genre, and it was set at the end of the Civil War. I liked the beginning, where the stage was quickly built for an interesting story. I liked both Tamsyn and James at first, but the last half of the book fell apart. From the time Tamsyn threw herself at James and begged him for sex, things begin to change. James lies to Tamsyn several times, and what man would forget he had a fiancée back at home? What man would coldly introduce  a woman to his lover as his fiancée without any explanation the minute she appears? I didn't buy it. Tamsyn also becomes very selfish and willful toward the end. Since she was brought up as a Southern lady, I didn't see her cursing as much as she did, and the ending was rushed and had almost no romance. There were several other mistakes. The daughter's name was used once for the mother's, "made" for "met," "brest" for "breath," and "plum" for "plumb." There were pronoun case problems, like "take the boys and I to my mother's." And, the sex is very heated and explicit, including oral. After all this, when she is in his bed in Boston, Tamsyn wonders if she's falling in love with James. It started as an interesting novella, but it became low-class and seedy.