Review: Peril in Paris

Peril in Paris
Rating: 5/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher! 

It’s 1911, and the young detectives of TAYLOR & ROSE are turning their talents to ESPIONAGE.

On a case for the mysterious SECRET SERVICE BUREAU, the daring MISS SOPHIE TAYLOR and MISS LILIAN ROSE must leave London for the boulevards and grand hotels of Paris.

But DANGER lurks beneath the bright lights of the city - and INTRIGUE and MURDER lie in store. As aeroplanes soar in the skies overhead, our heroines will need to put all their spy skills to the test to face the PERIL that awaits them... 

As you guys know I freaking loved the Sinclaire's Mysteries series and I was devastated to learn it was coming to an end...until I heard there was going to be a new series continuing Sophie and Lil's adventures! So I've been very excited to crack on with this book! 

Peril in Paris has a very different vibe to the first series. The first series is all solving cases Scooby Doo style, and this one is shifted more towards spies and espionage. It also seems a bit more...professional, in a sense. They're working for the Secret Service Bureau and they have their own detective agency! 

This book gives us a glimpse inside the Taylor and Rose detective agency, before getting to see parts of the fictional Arnovia and plenty of Paris! My one issue with reviewing this, is that it's kind of hard not to spoil the Sinclaire Mysteries....so I'm going to try my hardest not to! 

We get a split POV this book. The first being Anna, who's wary of her new governess. Said governess is a familiar face once you work out who it is. Anna is on to the fact there's something strange about her and is determined to figure out what it is, she's the Princess of Arnovia, by the way. I understand her and why she did what she did but at the same time, I was like.....you little cow! How rude! Because you know...it's only *redacted because spoiler*. If I didn't know who the governess really was, I probably would have been on Anna's side more. 

Sophie is our other POV, and when we meet her she's on her own little mission before she's sent out on a bigger one. To solve a murder in Paris with Tilly. I feel like Sophie becomes a much stronger character in this book, not that she wasn't before, but she...comes in to her own a bit as she's out on her own pretty much, without the group. She has to rely on herself a lot more. Plus she's having to come to terms with a few things, she thinks a lot about how different her life could have been and what her life could have been if her parents where still alive. 

Peril in Paris is nicely paced, with plenty of mystery and intrigue as we have the events in Paris and Arnovia, one being a murder investigation and one a secret mission that's to do with some political plotting. 

There's an air race about to go on in Paris so we get to meet Captain Nakamura who's one of the pilots. I'm hoping we'll get to see more of him in at least the next book, if not more given how this one ends! Miss Russell is another new character...a reporter. I was quite impressed with her, nosy as she was, until she completely blew one of the girls cover like the silly cow she is! Then we have Captain Harry Forsyth. He's just a bit of a prat really. I fully believed he was a snake at one point but...turns out he's just a prat! There's always room for redemption though. 

I'm not sure if the same will be true for the coming books in this series but we only got a little glimpse of Joe, Billy and Mei, and didn't get to see Jack at all. We did get a little bit of Tilly, but the focus was mostly on Sophie and Lil, which I have no problem with! The friendship between them is utterly brilliant, and you can see the bond between them a lot in this book. I'm kinda sad we didn't get to see the whole gang but we did get a nice group of new characters some of whom we'll hopefully see again. 

I enjoyed the storytelling, the way the two stories/POV's slowly came and wove together. It was maddening to see the characters from each POV just miss each other, or a new character catch a glimpse of Sophie, for instance. I was like JUST MEET ALREADY! The plot was built up nicely, with more and more clues being thrown in to add more intrigue and depth. It's brilliantly paced, and has a nice mix of action and smarts when it comes to solving the case. 

I one-hundred percent loved the ending, Lil and Sophie's reunion and working together...I feel like they not necessarily struggled, because they did very well, but didn't enjoy working alone or in pairs as much as they did working together and as a group. There was more pressure, more stress and no backup. They where essentially alone and far away from home and potential backup. At least that's how it seemed from Sophie's POV. 

Everything fantastically links to the previous series, and we're left with a bit of an open ending. While one mission is complete, the other one is left hanging slightly and is on going, and should provide us with lots of interesting adventure I hope! Plus a thread from the previous series rears it's head. The historical detail is once again fantastic, there's a nice amount of detail that builds up an image of what  the time period was like, and the plot keeps you on the edge of your seat. This one has a different vibe to the previous series, and things are definitely stepping up a notch! I'm incredibly excited to see what's going to happen to Sophie and Lil next!