Thank you so much to NetGalley and Adele Jordan for providing me with a complimentary digital ARC for The Gentlewoman Spy. The honest opinions expressed in this review are my own.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This is the first book I’ve read by this author. It took me a while to finish it, but this was a really fun book. I loved the time period. I think espionage is a really interesting topic. I loved that the book involved Queen Elizabeth. She’s always a fascinating person to learn about. I thought the writing was great. Loved everything about it!

The Gentlewoman Spy is a series starter in a new historical mystery series by Adele Jordan. Released 8th Aug 2022 by Sapere Books, it's 306 pages and is available in paperback and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately. For Kindle Unlimited subscribers, this book is currently included in the KU subscription library to borrow and read for free. The other books in the series (now up to 4 books, with a fifth due out in June 2023), are also currently available on KU.

This is a spy/espionage thriller set in the Elizabethan period. Political machinations and currying favor in the court of the queen can cause dangerous, even deadly, fallout. One of the more valuable and competent operatives in the employ of spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham is an intelligent and capable female protege called Kit Scarlett.

The author is quite capable, and the characters are three dimensional and believable. The dialogue (of necessity) is written to be entirely accessible to modern readers, and happily the author has managed to avoid glaring modern anachronisms. The adventure is engagingly well written around a framework of actual people and events from the period. It's skillfully interwoven and not always easy to see where real history shades into fiction.

Four stars. With 4 books extant currently and a fifth due out soon, this would be a great choice for a series binge/buddy read. Fans of Ariana Franklin, Andrew Swanston, and SJ Parris will find a lot to enjoy here.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

Great beginning to a new series featuring Elizabethan spymaster Frances Walshingham. Kit Scarlett, a young woman, is Walshingham's secret weapon, a female spy in an era where a woman's primary role was to make a strategic marriage. Kit defies convention in many ways and the atmospheric setting and connections she makes along the way in pursuit of information for Walshingham make for a great read. Fans of historical mysteries will love the fresh perspective of the intrigue and precariousness of Queen Elizabeth's court.

The Elizabethan age was a dangerous time with conspiracies everywhere and deadly religious and political conflicts threatened the stability of country and the life of Queen Elizabeth. Kit Scarlett was the right-hand man of Elizabeth's spy master. When a new plot threatened to put Mary, Queen of Scots on the throne instead of Elizabeth, Kit and a Scottish agent must work together if they had any hope to stop this rebellion in time. If they didn't kill each other first...

This was quite the thrill ride. I was afraid at first it would be more romance than actual mystery/thriller but I was pleasantly surprised. Very enjoyable.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in return for an honest opinion.

Honestly, I had bigger expectations of this book that it sort of didn't deliver for me. Ultimately I don't think we were a good match and that is it.
Solid writing tho.

Exquisitely written!! I loved this book! Oh wow. What a fantastic book! I was totally hooked… I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. It was full of tension, twists and turns that kept me totally engrossed… I read it in one day as I just couldn’t put it down.

This felt forced and like it was designed to be written for a very specific audience. I was definitely not the intended audience and that's ok. I set this book aside and did not finish it.

What an interesting book! I wish there were more stories about women spies because I find them very intriguing. Overall an enjoyable read and Kit was a likable character. I look forward to reading more adventures of Kit one day!

I really enjoyed this book. The story is based around a female character who spends her time as a spy acting either like a woman or man. This means the book can roam into different aspects of the personality of the lead character but also means the overall story can go into many different directions but without losing the central characters or themes. The development of her reluctant relationship with a colleague is a slow-burner across the length of the book but reaches a nice conclusion by the end. I read lots of books around the period but this book takes the genre into a new area by introducing a female lead. Looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

The Gentlewoman Spy is the first book in a new series by Jordan. We are introduced to Kit a protege to the Queen's spy master and the only female in his band of spy's. The main plot is how Kit is trying to find out and stop an assassination of the Queen to put Mary Stuart on the throne. I liked the story but found Kit to be whiny and making stupid decisions that she thought would get her more in her mentors graces but only backfired and make her feel younger than she is supposed to be. I enjoyed her partner and the banter that went with them and look forward to reading more of their interactions in future books.

Kit, Sir Francis Walsingham's protege, no sooner hears of a plot against the queen than she wants to be the one to prevent it. But Walsingham will permit her to be involved only if she works with a partner - specifically, Scottish agent Iomhar. The pair start off on the wrong foot and largely stay that way, though something unnameable is growing between them. Kit's secret weapon is that, as a woman, she's unlikely to be suspected - but even that may not be enough against the forces they face. Can Kit and Iomhar discover enough about the plot against the queen soon enough to be able to stop it? Time is running short and even what Iomhar considers Kit's crazy risks may not be enough...

This was the first book I've read by the author, so I wasn't sure what to expect. It ended up a bit of an 'I liked it - but...' story. Overall, I enjoyed the story itself, though there were a few parts that didn't quite ring true to me (like some of the crossbow stuff (though I'm no expert); and she seemed to learn to swim overly fast; and why did he chase her in the first chapter rather than taking advantage of the disturbance to do his own thing?). However, the writing could have done with some tightening up, and definitely needed an editor to fix the semi-occasional wrong word usage (e.g., ships have 'bows' not 'boughs' and women wear 'finery' not 'refinery'). If such things don't bother you and you find the blurb interesting, give it a try - but if you're the more picky type, it may be better to try something else. I'm undecided whether to try something more by the author myself in the hope that she's found an editor. 3.5 stars.

Note that I received a complimentary copy of the book from NetGalley. I was not required to write a positive review and this is my considered opinion of the book.

What a pity that the book disappeared before I read it!!!

I was looking forward to reading it.

Good luck with the book

I

The lady detectives of the 16th century - at least the ones I've read have all been ladies of the aristocracy
who have the intelligence and keenness to turn their hands to detecting. In this story in 1584 the young spy is
Kit a woman of no known background though one has suspicions of her lineage though nothing is said.

Walsingham Queen Elizabeth's spy master has discovered a plot which seeks to murder the Queen and place Mary Queen
of the Scots on the throne. First despatched to Scotland to access a prisoner who may be able to give them clues
Kit succeeds in this mission, disguised as a soldier. When the plot focuses on London she has to team up with someone
whom she does not trust and finds hard to work with. Iomhar whom she has to work with is equally hesitant to work
with Kit but there is no choice in the matter.

How the aristocracy in London has penetrated the court, got easy access to the Queen and thus able to carry out
an assassination is plotted through this story. Apart from the detective genre here, there is plenty of historical
fiction to keep one on one's toes!

This was a solid and thrilling story but I found myself drawn out of the tale by very modern phrasing and dialogue. This is a real shame because the plot was nicely paced and the premise fresh, but sentence structure seemed a little rushed and was distracting.

When a book claims to be historical fiction, I’d like it to present at least a working knowledge of the era it tries to portray. A few descriptions of garments and factual inaccuracies picked from Regency romances don’t a historical fiction make. “Past is a different country” and renaissance is on a different planet for how incomprehensible its worldview is for modern readers.

The author doesn’t even try to establish the world as it was before subverting it, making it impossible for readers to appreciate how radical Kit’s character would’ve been in her time. The book is more like historical fantasy, taking place in a world invented by the author, with some names from history. Had it claimed to be historical fantasy, I think I would’ve enjoyed it more. As it was, I had to stop reading.

I don’t usually make suggestions for authors, but I think rewriting this as historical fantasy, either set in an original world or an alt-history one, would go a long way to making it better. At the very least, it would prevent two-star reviews from irate historians.

I am so thrilled that I was chosen to read this book! I found it to be q really enjoyable read. I was excited to find that although when I thought I had the ending worked out, I was proved wrong!! I love when I'm proven wrong.

I look forward to the next book and hope that this will turn into a fine little series. Thoroughly wonderful read.

I am rounding up from 2.5 stars. I had high hopes and the premise is fun, but the lead character is flat and often annoying. Her backstory and flashbacks are cliche and her choices as a well-trained spy are atrocious. She repeatedly makes poor decisions yet is repeatedly given more assignments. Her partner, a Scottish intelligencer, has marginally more depth of character but absolutely no purpose as an intelligencer other than to follow Kit about and banter with her. The plot felt thin and the many flashpoints too think and too contrived. The dialogue - particularly that of the heroine - also felt too modern and jarring.

I am hopeful that, as the first in a series, the following books will see character development and less clichéd writing. This is a fun premise and a fun read - there is considerable room for growth in future installments. I think part of my frustration with the book is that it was *okay* but really could have been so much more.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Sapere Books for the opportunity to review the ARC.

I love historical mysteries set in the Elizabethan time period! The Gentlewoman Spy introduces us to a young, impulsive, reckless, but ultimately likeable female spy named Kit Scarlett. Raised by Walsingham, Kit has been taught spy craft from an early age. In this first book in what I hope will become a series, Kit is tasked with thwarting an assignation plot against Queen Elizabeth.

I liked the side characters in this story and enjoyed how the time period was portrayed. The pacing of the story was even with action sequences balanced out by plot-driven dialogue.

The author has a tendency to redundancies that I found distracting but it ultimately didn't interfere with my enjoyment of this story.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

What can I say? A really enjoyable read, although just when I thought I had the ending worked out, I was proved wrong..
I look forward to the follow up and wonder how many more are planned.

I loved this book. It captured me from the beginning and I couldn’t put it down. The protagonists are thoroughly likable and their banter is excellent. The story is fast-paced, with just the perfect amount of historical descriptions. There is also some humor, which I re-read a couple of times as it was that well done. Overall, this is a great book. Thank you to Netgalley and Sapere Books for the advance reader copy.