Review: Tainted Angel - Anne Cleeland

A deadly game of deception. A notorious beauty with a shadowy past

In the time of Napoleon, Vidia Swanson appears to live a gilded life of ease and luxury. Beneath this façade, however, she works for the Home Office as an ‘angel,’ coaxing secrets from powerful men who may or may not be traitors to the Crown. In the course of her latest assignment, matters take an alarming turn when she realizes that her spymaster suspects that she is the one who is tainted--a double agent working for the enemy.

Lucien Carstairs is a fellow agent with his own dark secrets--unless he is setting an elaborate trap to reveal her own supposed treason. Backed into a corner, she can only hope to stay one step ahead of the hangman in a race to stop the next war before it destroys them--and destroys England.

Tainted Angel offers up a compelling game of cat and mouse in which no one can be trusted--and anyone can be tainted.

My thoughts:

This was a spy/mystery/romance/historical. A nice little mix and I thought I knew, but I had no idea at all ;)

Vidia was an enigma. Her fellow spies believes she is tainted and I was unsure. She was way too comfy around her mark. So I kept wondering about her and her benefactor. In the end I wondered about everyone. You can't really trust anyone in this book and first at the end I could relax and trust people, trust them to know what they were doing.

That is the whole thriller/mystery parts. She has some explaining to do and the heat is on. In comes the hero (who I did not know what to make of either). Their relationship becomes, oh you just has to read it. It's a cat and mouse game and it kept me on my toes. Then there is the whole dead wife thing too to think about. But, nah I will not say one thing more. This was just a book were mysteries slowly were revealed. 

One thing though, at times I was, not confused just..troubled. I felt that I should be able to trust someone at least and pages seemed to flow by without me noticing it and not in a good way.

Conclusion:

An thrilling spy novel with romance to offer too.

Cover
I love the red

Historical Fiction /thriller/mystery/romance
Paperback, 368 pages
Published June 4th 2013 by Sourcebooks Landmark
For review