Review: Spies in St. Petersburg

Spies in St. Petersburg
Rating: 5/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher in exchange for an honest review! 

With Sophie still missing in action after their explosive mission in Paris, Lil decides to take matters into her own hands. On a new mission for the Secret Service Bureau, can Lil find Sophie in misty, mysterious St. Petersburg? Can they uncover the identity of their true enemy and can they trust anyone—even the Bureau? It's time for Sophie and Lil to put their spy skills to the test. 

There's nothing like kicking off a book with Lil doing a bit of light thieving, am I right!? Honestly I loved getting Ruperts POV at the start as you wondered who the girl was (or in my case screeched LIL excitedly over and over) before diving in to Lils POV. She gives us a quick refresher on what happened last book, before filling us in on what she's been up to since. 

Lil's investigating the dragon paintings which we know allegedly lead to some kind of weapon. But she swiftly finds out that Sophie has gone missing in St. Petersburg and Lil isn't one to leave her friends in the lurch so she heads off to find her. Genuinely, I love Lil, but she and Joe were so cute together in this book and I was squealing so much but it had me nervous too because I felt like it's been building up to this and something was probably going to happen. 

As you guys might remember in Peril in Paris, while Lil was off on her mission we had more of a focus on Sophie and her POV but this book has switched that round and we focus a little more on Lil. At least in the beginning anyway, before joining Sophie in St. Petersburg. I love this series, it gets better and better and as much as I loved the main series...I am loving getting to travel around historical Europe with Sophie and Lil, especially as it's an interesting time to do so. 

Sophie's in St. Petersburg at a particularly interesting time, so not only do we get to see more of Nakamura which I was particularly happy about, and how they bonded on the rest of the race...but we  get to see what it would have been like in St. Petersburg in 1911 and it adds a sense of tension to Sophie's POVs. There's growing unrest among the people about how they're treated and how little their Tsar cares about them. We get to explore the different view points people of the time had as the family Sophie is staying with have different stances. One's a traditionalist, another is more critical and yet another is in favour of the monarchy being abolished and setting up a peoples government. Revolution is coming and it's 6 years out in this book, I believe. 

In short...I continue to love the historical accuracy and the historical tidbits Woodfine sprinkles her books with. She brings the time period to life and she brings the setting to life at the time with as much information as possible smoothly woven in. A little detail here or there, a historical tidbit smoothly slotted in there, all without making the prose too wordy. 

Lil continues to be awesome and I love her but Sophie...I loved getting to see Sophie become even better as a character. She's conquered some fears and seems even stronger and bolder in this book! I think one of the biggest shocks for me this book though was learning Carruthers has a first name...Samuel. I spent most of the book wanting to give him a slap upside the head, or wring his neck. He's so hard to like usually but we get to see a lot more of him this book and while he seemed suspicious to me at a couple of different points, I did end up warming up to him as we spent more time with him in the book. Now I'm actually quite excited to see him more in the next book, hopefully! 

I spent a lot of this book, however, being suspicious of the Chief and the SSB in general, they seemed less and less trustworthy and what's more, thanks to Nakamura, Sophie's eyes are opening a bit more to her own government and its intentions. Mainly that they may not seems as good intentioned as she thinks when it comes to the weapon. 

I was also surprised by the Count and his little redemption in this...I ended up quite liking him to be honest! Our little stint with the Circus gave us new characters Hana and Ravi as well, and I loved them but they also made me sad because I figured they'd only be a one off for this book. I so wanted them to join the agency! 

The only bad thing that I have to say about this book is that unfortunately we have to say goodbye to Nakamura, and I never thought I'd be sad to see the back of the Count but here we are. As is usual for this series, the pace builds up throughout the book, with clues and hints scattered throughout the newspaper covers and the narrative itself. The ending is explosive, we've had some interesting plot twists in this one particularly towards the end, but while everything is wrapped up nicely on Sophie and Lils side of things there is a horrifying cliffhanger back home in London and the article at the end of the book does nothing to alleviate my suspicions. Please Woodfine...say it ain't so otherwise we might have a falling out! Honestly I still can't believe that cliffhanger happened, it's too cruel! 

Spies in St. Petersburg is another excellent instalment in this series, focusing mainly on Sophie and Lil with some assistance from everyone. We're introduced to new places and new characters, we get to bask in some more history and there's plenty of excitement and heart stopping moments! It's just so odd to finish a book thoroughly satisfied but also internally screaming and needing the next book ASAP!