4.5 stars
Thank you to Avon and Netgalley for this ARC. My opinions are my own.
Official plot summary:
Ten years ago, they joined the CIA.
Six years ago, he left the game.
Five years ago, they fell in love.
One year ago, she ran out into the cold with absolutely no intention of ever coming back.
And two minutes ago, they woke up, bloody and bruised and handcuffed together in the dark.
They don’t know where they are. They don’t know how they got there. And they have absolutely no idea who is after them or what this nameless, faceless villain wants.
The only thing that’s clear is that, after ten years of covers and chemistry, secrets and lies, these two rival spies have been sucked into their greatest mission yet, and now they’re going to have to team up to stay alive. (If they don’t kill each other first.)
Ten years ago, Alex and King enroll in “spy school” together and become instant rivals. King is basically a legacy recruit, with his grandparents and father absolutely legendary in spy circles. Alex wants adventure and a challenge and getting away from her constant guilt of being the healthy twin, while her sister had multiple heart surgeries and ended up very frail because Alex took up too much space in the womb. She’s got a lot ofissues, and she’d rather cut herself off from her entire family to live a life of constant subterfuge rather than properly deal with them.
While Alex and King are bitter rivals, they also clearly do excellent work together, with the result that they keep being paired up on missions, where both of them staunchy ignore their amazing chemistry and mutual attraction to continue their weird feud. As the summary reveals, they eventually admit their feelings for one another. However, after Alex’ twin sister is kidnapped by sinister forces who believe her to be Alex (not knowing that Alex had an identical twin in the first place), she is prepared to drop everything to go rescue her twin. King, being the more cautious of the two wants her to take some time and make a plan, resulting in an argument where foolish things like “If you leave now, never come back” are uttered, and actually believed.
So for a whole year, King has been desperately searching for Alex to apologise and win her back, while Alex has hidden herself away so well that no one knows where she’s been. They wake up handcuffed together, with no memory of the previous 48 hours, and need to use all of their wits and skills to figure out why they’ve been tricked into a trap of some sort, who is behind it and how they are going to get the best of their mysterious enemies.
Full review here.