I really enjoyed this spy romance of hidden identities. If spies and romance are your thing, I recommend this series, so far it's pretty good!

http://ktleyed.blogspot.com/2009/03/spy-by-celeste-bradley.html ( )

The Spy is the 3rd novel in Celeste Bradley's Liar's Club series of regency spy romances. This is the story of James Cunnington, whom we met in The Pretender (he's Agatha's brother), and Phillipa Atwater, the daughter of a former Liar's Club cryptologist.

Synopsis: Phillipa, penniless and destitute, is looking for her father who has been abducted by French spies. The only clue she has is a note in her father's notebook about a man named James Cunnington. In order to investigate Cunnington, she poses as a young man and takes a position as tutor to James' adopted son. The spies in the Liars Club believe that her father has changed sides and is now working for the French. James, meanwhile, is trying to settle a personal vendetta against a woman who betrayed him (see The Pretender). He feels responsible for the secrets he allegedly divulged while under the spell of his former lover. To top it off, he's been taken off the Atwater case due to an injury, so he secretly pursues the investigation on his own. Little does he know, of course, that Atwater's daughter is living under his own roof.

I liked James' character when we first met him in The Pretender. He was kind of funny (in a sardonic sort of way). You could really sense his regret for the secrets he feared he had spilled, and also for the way that he had neglected his sister for all those years. By the time we see him in The Spy, his regret, self-loathing, and general mistrustfulness (is that a word?) have made him a remote and unaffectionate man. Afraid to attach himself to another woman, he has taken in a reformed young pickpocket and named him as his heir so that he won't have to marry to produce an heir of his own. And not only does he not want to have anything to do with women, he also withholds affection and attention from his young "son." Starved for attention, the boy naturally turns to Phillipa, who begins to fulfill a motherly role in the child's life.

James, too, begins to feel a closeness to the young tutor. He feels comfortable around "Phillip" and opens up to him, revealing his feelings of guilt and betrayal. Poor Phillipa longs to comfort him, but has to maintain her disguise. The longer she is with him, the more she comes to realize that James is not a villain and the more she comes to love him. I kind of felt sorry for her. I mean, here she is this poor girl with no family, no money, a lost father, the French and English both are trying to hunt her down and kill her for what she might know, and the man she's in love with is emotionally wasted and thinks she's a boy.

I liked this book for the most part. However, I felt like the "woman posing as a man" thing went on a little too long. I don't generally have a problem with that particular plot device so long as it doesn't go on forever. Because if you wait too long before the other party discovers the truth, then there is not enough time left in the story for that person to believably fall in love with the other person. I think that happened with this book. I also would have liked a bit more excitement on James' end over his perceived betrayal by Phillipa. He gets mad, but he gets over it pretty quickly. Where's the misery? the rage? the oh-no-I've-been-betrayed-again-by-someone-I-love torment? I must confess that I like a little melodramatic anguish in my romance. ( )

From BackCover:
RULE # 3: NEVER SURRENDER YOUR WILL.
By day, he is a gentleman with a notorious fondness for games of seduction. By night, he is one of the most skilled saboteurs in the Liar's Club—a secret group of renegades dedicated to serving the Crown. And while he willingly risks his life for the good of England, he vows never to put his heart in harm's way...

James Cunnington has a pressing mission at hand: He must find the daughter of a missing code breaker for the Liar's Club, a man suspected of turning traitor for Napoleon. Time is of the utmost concern. While it is evident that his ward's new tutor has something to hide, James is unaware that the woman he seeks now resides under his very roof...

Desperate and near destitute, Phillipa Atwater must don gentlemen's clothing to pass herself off as a scholarly young tutor. Her clever—if itchy—disguise allows her time to pursue her quest to find her father, ruthlessly abducted by French spies. Closely guarding the cryptic notebook he entrusted to her care, she senses danger all around her—even in the home of her roguishly handsome new employer, James Cunnington. Now Phillipa is about to discover that desire can be as lethal as a well-aimed bullet... ( )