Shana Galen

Books: Romance | Historical

Lord and Lady Spy (2011)

This is not an historical romance.

It's a steampunk, without the automatons. Or perhaps it's fantasy, with boinking.

But it is not historical fantasy.

Why? Because it's wildly inaccurate as far as the history goes. So inaccurate that even I–who am terrible with dates and other numbers–caught multiple flaws.

Here is the start of the book:

Somewhere in Europe, July 1815.

Got that?

I was willing to suspend belief over the female spy. I knew going in that was going to be non-reality based, so I just let it go.

That wasn't the problem.

The first problem came with this paragraph:

"But I must warn you, Dewhurst favors the waltz."

"That doesn't scare me," he said from behind her, his breath tickling her ear.

I know from many other stories that the waltz was considered scandalous when it first came out, which is a delightfully fascinating historical fact. The problem is that it was invented around 1847. Thirty-some years after the setting of this book.

And I forgot to mark it, but I remembered a mention of bustles, which were popular in the late 1800s to early 1900s.

And of course both the language and the actions of both characters were anachronistic.

That is not to say there weren't amusing parts. There were multiple allusions to the movie Mr. & Mrs. Smyth (I mean, even their names are a play on that). And there are plenty of funny and silly passages. But don't look here for anything resembling historical accuracy.

Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca

Rating: 3/10