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! 

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!