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sideark's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
agentkp's review
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This one went by so fast but I really enjoyed the ride. It was nice to see the characters being respectful and professional responsible and still manage to get close and grow.
achoward's review
2.0
Spoilers, ho!
Katherine Lovegrove, a distant heir to the English throne - think higher than two dozen steps - and daughter of judge Michael Lovegrove receives threats from an organized crime family because the latter is about to sentence the daughter of the head of the family to a lot of time in prison.
Eve Webb is a former protection agent, resigning from her job because of a double bombing - one immediate, one shortly after in order to catch first responders to the scene -and because she not only thinks she could have done more (how??) but because of the way information is compartmentalized and she thinks the intelligence services should be sharing information about things like threats of bombings so they can all work together to address threats. I don't have much optimism about this, no matter how this book ends. She's living in Tokyo, teaching English here and there and basically barely making ends meet. Her former boss now runs his own show, and goes to Tokyo to get her back to protect Katherine. There's quite a bit of money involved, so Eve says yes and they return to London. Eve knows nothing about the job, the specific threat(s), or the protectee. You can see where this is going when we find out Eve is a staunch anti-monarchist.
And of course it does: Eve threatens her boss that she'll quit on the spot because she is opposed to protecting a royal, no matter how distant, but he pleads with her to meet with someone: the judge. After hearing him out, Eve reluctantly agrees to do the job.
Katherine, trying to have her own life, objects, of course, and then goes on to have a childlike hissy fit about Eve staying in her apartment with her. The very next day - when her father hands down the sentence - a brick is thrown through her office window. Obviously, she won't be able to work there in person, as it puts everyone else at risk, so off they go to a very large manor (or very small castle, depending on your viewpoint): her childhood home. Where she promptly locks herself in her room. Like a child, instead of a grown woman almost 40 years old.
Eve's unhappy as well, and gets more people from her boss to help guard the castle, which, from a protection standpoint, is not a bad place to be: clear lines of sight, thick walls, and easy coverage of access points. It's a dream!
Except Katherine doesn't want to be there, doesn't want Eve and her crew on the site, and generally is petulant. She convinces Eve to allow her to attend a charity ball that she's been organizing for a year, and where she gets people to open their wallets wide, and Eve agrees after determining not that that's an easy place to protect Katherine but that it means so damn much to her. This would be a signal that you're allowing your judgement to be impaired because you're falling in love with he protectee even though there's no real chemistry going on.
And on that note, one other item: close protection duties mean close and almost always in contact. Alas, here, Eve and Katherine are not particularly close nor in constant contact with one another, so it's a bit mystifying how these two start falling for one another when they're also on different sides of things, attitude and royalty-wise, and Katherine has had a stick up her hind end about the lack of need of Eve's services in the first place.
In any case, they're on the way back to the castle afterwards, and someone takes a shot at the car, injuring the driver and causing Eve to jump into action, telling Katherine to get down, and taking over driving duties to get them to safety. Katherine is then at the castle, and Eve is off to a briefing with her boss. One again: not close, not in contact.
There are also no questions/discussions given over to the reader about the potshot at the car. Routes are varied, and they never take the same route twice, so how did anyone know? The obvious answer, of course: there's a mole. Either this does not occur to Eve or her boss, or the reader is left out until later. The former would be rather silly for experienced protection service people, and the latter is, I think, unfair.
Eve, deciding she's too close to Katherine, feely-wise, decides to hand over protection to someone else, and scoots. Katherine is promptly kidnapped, courtesy of someone ramming the car - again, how does anyone know the route?
Eve and her boss finally realize there's a mole, and there's a showdown in Ops, with Eve taking a guy to the floor and punching staples into his back until he gives up the location.
This leads to a bunch of services working together to retrieve Katherine, and Eve is there, leading Katherine out of the warehouse where she'd been stashed (and beaten), and where the head of the organized crime family has pulled a Stupid Thing, by being there on premises so the law can catch him, because daughter for daughter something something, even though his daughter is both not beaten and is also not dead.
So Eve and Katherine are reunited, and are now totally In Love, despite barely seeing one another through the whole book, and also apparently having worked out that whole royal-anti-monarchist thing in record time. They get the HEA, naturally.
As much as I hate the instalove trope, I recognize that it's a handy way to cut out many chapters of a book and get to the chase, so to speak. But you have to decide what the book is: is it a romance, with occasional flashes of mystery and danger? Or is it primarily a mystery/action/thriller, with occasional romance and/or sexytimes (note: there are no sexytimes in this book)? It's also fine if it it is both in equal measures, of course. I don't think this worked on any of the three. There isn't enough action except at the end for me to believe Katherine is any real danger that couldn't be averted. There is no chemistry and no romance. The only balance between the two is a distinct lack of either. I'd have read twice the number of pages to get either or both.
There is one thing that could certainly have used an editor's hand: there's a lot of head-snapping going on here, and not of the action/thriller type of taking out the bad guys. Eve and Katherine seem to snap their heads around quite a bit. Of the nine instances of "snapped", five of them are one or the other snapping their head up or toward someone. That's probably four too many.
It sounds like I'm just pounding on this, but I'm not - I'm just demanding because I want good stories and I want them to make sense. YMMV on every point I've made before now, but I imagine the last one is true for everyone.
Two and a half stars out of five, sadly rounded down to two.
Thanks to Bold Stroke Books and NetGalley for the reading copy.
Katherine Lovegrove, a distant heir to the English throne - think higher than two dozen steps - and daughter of judge Michael Lovegrove receives threats from an organized crime family because the latter is about to sentence the daughter of the head of the family to a lot of time in prison.
Eve Webb is a former protection agent, resigning from her job because of a double bombing - one immediate, one shortly after in order to catch first responders to the scene -and because she not only thinks she could have done more (how??) but because of the way information is compartmentalized and she thinks the intelligence services should be sharing information about things like threats of bombings so they can all work together to address threats. I don't have much optimism about this, no matter how this book ends. She's living in Tokyo, teaching English here and there and basically barely making ends meet. Her former boss now runs his own show, and goes to Tokyo to get her back to protect Katherine. There's quite a bit of money involved, so Eve says yes and they return to London. Eve knows nothing about the job, the specific threat(s), or the protectee. You can see where this is going when we find out Eve is a staunch anti-monarchist.
And of course it does: Eve threatens her boss that she'll quit on the spot because she is opposed to protecting a royal, no matter how distant, but he pleads with her to meet with someone: the judge. After hearing him out, Eve reluctantly agrees to do the job.
Katherine, trying to have her own life, objects, of course, and then goes on to have a childlike hissy fit about Eve staying in her apartment with her. The very next day - when her father hands down the sentence - a brick is thrown through her office window. Obviously, she won't be able to work there in person, as it puts everyone else at risk, so off they go to a very large manor (or very small castle, depending on your viewpoint): her childhood home. Where she promptly locks herself in her room. Like a child, instead of a grown woman almost 40 years old.
Eve's unhappy as well, and gets more people from her boss to help guard the castle, which, from a protection standpoint, is not a bad place to be: clear lines of sight, thick walls, and easy coverage of access points. It's a dream!
Except Katherine doesn't want to be there, doesn't want Eve and her crew on the site, and generally is petulant. She convinces Eve to allow her to attend a charity ball that she's been organizing for a year, and where she gets people to open their wallets wide, and Eve agrees after determining not that that's an easy place to protect Katherine but that it means so damn much to her. This would be a signal that you're allowing your judgement to be impaired because you're falling in love with he protectee even though there's no real chemistry going on.
And on that note, one other item: close protection duties mean close and almost always in contact. Alas, here, Eve and Katherine are not particularly close nor in constant contact with one another, so it's a bit mystifying how these two start falling for one another when they're also on different sides of things, attitude and royalty-wise, and Katherine has had a stick up her hind end about the lack of need of Eve's services in the first place.
In any case, they're on the way back to the castle afterwards, and someone takes a shot at the car, injuring the driver and causing Eve to jump into action, telling Katherine to get down, and taking over driving duties to get them to safety. Katherine is then at the castle, and Eve is off to a briefing with her boss. One again: not close, not in contact.
There are also no questions/discussions given over to the reader about the potshot at the car. Routes are varied, and they never take the same route twice, so how did anyone know? The obvious answer, of course: there's a mole. Either this does not occur to Eve or her boss, or the reader is left out until later. The former would be rather silly for experienced protection service people, and the latter is, I think, unfair.
Eve, deciding she's too close to Katherine, feely-wise, decides to hand over protection to someone else, and scoots. Katherine is promptly kidnapped, courtesy of someone ramming the car - again, how does anyone know the route?
Eve and her boss finally realize there's a mole, and there's a showdown in Ops, with Eve taking a guy to the floor and punching staples into his back until he gives up the location.
This leads to a bunch of services working together to retrieve Katherine, and Eve is there, leading Katherine out of the warehouse where she'd been stashed (and beaten), and where the head of the organized crime family has pulled a Stupid Thing, by being there on premises so the law can catch him, because daughter for daughter something something, even though his daughter is both not beaten and is also not dead.
So Eve and Katherine are reunited, and are now totally In Love, despite barely seeing one another through the whole book, and also apparently having worked out that whole royal-anti-monarchist thing in record time. They get the HEA, naturally.
As much as I hate the instalove trope, I recognize that it's a handy way to cut out many chapters of a book and get to the chase, so to speak. But you have to decide what the book is: is it a romance, with occasional flashes of mystery and danger? Or is it primarily a mystery/action/thriller, with occasional romance and/or sexytimes (note: there are no sexytimes in this book)? It's also fine if it it is both in equal measures, of course. I don't think this worked on any of the three. There isn't enough action except at the end for me to believe Katherine is any real danger that couldn't be averted. There is no chemistry and no romance. The only balance between the two is a distinct lack of either. I'd have read twice the number of pages to get either or both.
There is one thing that could certainly have used an editor's hand: there's a lot of head-snapping going on here, and not of the action/thriller type of taking out the bad guys. Eve and Katherine seem to snap their heads around quite a bit. Of the nine instances of "snapped", five of them are one or the other snapping their head up or toward someone. That's probably four too many.
It sounds like I'm just pounding on this, but I'm not - I'm just demanding because I want good stories and I want them to make sense. YMMV on every point I've made before now, but I imagine the last one is true for everyone.
Two and a half stars out of five, sadly rounded down to two.
Thanks to Bold Stroke Books and NetGalley for the reading copy.
00leah00's review
3.0
I’m a big Radley fan but “Protecting the Lady” was a disappointment for me. I wanted to read this for the bodyguard/forced proximity trope that I love but unfortunately this didn’t really live up to that trope. Eve Webb is called back to her old job as a professional protection officer when Lady Katherine Lovegrove’s life is put in danger.
The thing I loved about the bodyguard trope is the forced proximity and how it leads to the love interests getting to know each other while dealing with a difficult/stressful situation. The thing that was lacking here was that Eve and Katherine spend very little time with one another and there is very little dialogue between them. On top of that, Eve comes with some prejudices because of Katherine’s birthright and their conversations mostly center around that. I just couldn’t understand how a romance was supposed to develop with the very little that was given.
There are some good bones to a story here but I wish there was much more substance and depth to the relationship.
I can’t honestly recommend this romance as I think Radley has much better ones out there.
I received an ARC from Bold Strokes Books via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
The thing I loved about the bodyguard trope is the forced proximity and how it leads to the love interests getting to know each other while dealing with a difficult/stressful situation. The thing that was lacking here was that Eve and Katherine spend very little time with one another and there is very little dialogue between them. On top of that, Eve comes with some prejudices because of Katherine’s birthright and their conversations mostly center around that. I just couldn’t understand how a romance was supposed to develop with the very little that was given.
There are some good bones to a story here but I wish there was much more substance and depth to the relationship.
I can’t honestly recommend this romance as I think Radley has much better ones out there.
I received an ARC from Bold Strokes Books via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
amcheri's review against another edition
4.0
I've been a fan of Amanda Radley's books for a long time. I love, love, love her quirky, dry sense of humor and the types of situations in which her characters find themselves. When I'm feeling down, I know reading one of Radley's books is going to make me smile and laugh.
Protecting the Lady was a bit more serious than expected though. I mean, there were still a few good laughs but mostly it was fairly serious. Not a bad thing as it was still interesting and I like action mixed in with my romance. Did your mind go into the gutter? I meant thrillery action but sexy action is good too. Although if you're looking for explicit sex scenes, you won't find those here. But anyone who is familiar with Radley's work already knows that's not what she writes.
All in all, I did enjoy the book but it won't likely make it onto my re-read list.
Protecting the Lady was a bit more serious than expected though. I mean, there were still a few good laughs but mostly it was fairly serious. Not a bad thing as it was still interesting and I like action mixed in with my romance. Did your mind go into the gutter? I meant thrillery action but sexy action is good too. Although if you're looking for explicit sex scenes, you won't find those here. But anyone who is familiar with Radley's work already knows that's not what she writes.
All in all, I did enjoy the book but it won't likely make it onto my re-read list.
edict's review
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
barbrokatrin's review
2.0
I was provided and ARC by NetGalley and Bold Strokes in exchange for an honest review..
I've read most of Radley's books and they have been both a hit and a miss. This one sadly is a miss for me. Which is sad cause I really enjoyed the last 2 I read and was really looking forward to this one.
I'm missing the romance, the build up, the depth that I know this writer can do. I read "flight sqa016" back when it was a fanfic so I know the author can do the build up, the romance and angst and the depth in a story. But I'm missing it here... there's no romance until the epilog. Before the epilog I counted only 2 cheek kisses and one 1 kiss on the lips that lasted 2 seconds.
I feel this book was just superficial. The plot sounded good and I feel the book had more to give but sadly it ended up being flat.
I've read most of Radley's books and they have been both a hit and a miss. This one sadly is a miss for me. Which is sad cause I really enjoyed the last 2 I read and was really looking forward to this one.
I'm missing the romance, the build up, the depth that I know this writer can do. I read "flight sqa016" back when it was a fanfic so I know the author can do the build up, the romance and angst and the depth in a story. But I'm missing it here... there's no romance until the epilog. Before the epilog I counted only 2 cheek kisses and one 1 kiss on the lips that lasted 2 seconds.
I feel this book was just superficial. The plot sounded good and I feel the book had more to give but sadly it ended up being flat.
shereadstales's review
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
Thanks to NetGalley and Bold Strokes Books for the digital galley of this book.
Former Protection Command Officer Eve Webb gave up her career (and her country) after a terrorist attack left her disenchanted about the government organizations who are supposed to keep their people safe. When her former boss, Charlie, reaches out to her for a special job, she cannot refuse. She wasn’t expecting Lady Katherine Lovegrove. Katherine’s father wants her to take up her duties within the royal circle, but she wants something more. An independent lady in her 40s, she’s built a career for herself and relishes her independence. When a threat from a crime family after her father’s harsh sentence on one of its daughters, Lord Michael Lovegrove wants the best protecting his daughter.
I never get tired of enemies to lovers and bodyguard plot lines, and this book delivered pretty wonderfully on both. It’s a slow burn without the descriptive sexy scenes in case you’re not super into that in your romance. Though I enjoy a nice, hot book, it’s a nice break every once in a while to focus more on the characters and their growing relationship without following them into bed instantly and frequently. There’s plenty of smolder and the romantic tension builds quite nicely.
It’s exactly what I needed in between a string of SFF books of late, and I can’t wait to read more by Amanda Radley.
rubyoung22's review
3.0
This was an enjoyable, gentle read. I loved that it was a romance between two women and the dynamic of Eve being Katherine's personal protection officer was great.
I felt that the relationship itself was a little underbaked. It felt that they were suddenly in love and I really wasn't sure why as they had only had a few, very tame interactions and it felt like neither of them had really shown their true selves to the other. In that respect, it felt forced and rushed.
The action packed climax was compelling though and I did want to find out what happened. The ending was lovely and a satisfying pay off.
Perfect for a gentle piece of escapism!
I felt that the relationship itself was a little underbaked. It felt that they were suddenly in love and I really wasn't sure why as they had only had a few, very tame interactions and it felt like neither of them had really shown their true selves to the other. In that respect, it felt forced and rushed.
The action packed climax was compelling though and I did want to find out what happened. The ending was lovely and a satisfying pay off.
Perfect for a gentle piece of escapism!
bosbie's review
3.0
3/5 stars
thank you to netgalley and bold strokes books for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review
as someone who has had a life-long struggle trying to enjoy contemporary romance, i've finally found a book in this genre i could actually finish! overall a cute little romp. radley's prose, while a bit too tell-y for my taste at times, was straightforward enough for the book's short ~200 pages to feel like a fully completed work. the bodyguard trope is a tried and true formula so the romance worked, and i was pleasantly surprised at how tense and suspenseful the third act was.
now for my gripes: in general i couldn't fully picture any of the characters in my head because neither their physical features nor personalities were described besides basic features. eve is fit and katherine is beautiful, but what else? the prose hyper focused on what the pov character was feeling in the moment, but was too superficial go beyond that.
but my biggest issue with this book was that i just couldn't get myself to like katherine. she was written with a nice enough personality, but my views on inherited wealth are similar to eve's, and the attempts to justify katherine's childish behavior and entitlement didn't at all sway me the way it seemed to completely sway eve. and while the romance was cute, eve went from staunch anti-monarchist to lady katherine simp in what felt like a single chapter, which was in my opinion way too quick of a switch from a mindset so deeply ingrained in eve she had purposefully in her entire career never taken royal clients.
side tangent, but most of the blame regarding the initially strained relationship between eve and katherine was placed on eve, which i didn't think was fair given eve's background as a daughter of a working class family who experienced firsthand the inherent corruption and unfairness of royalty. so katherine is completely absolved of her involuntary yet nonetheless implicit involvement in centuries of wealth disparity because she ~works in philanthropy~ and ~gives money to charity~?? miss me with that bullshit.
still enjoyed overall. good premise and romance, but the quality would have benefited if more time was invested in making katherine less insufferable.
thank you to netgalley and bold strokes books for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review
as someone who has had a life-long struggle trying to enjoy contemporary romance, i've finally found a book in this genre i could actually finish! overall a cute little romp. radley's prose, while a bit too tell-y for my taste at times, was straightforward enough for the book's short ~200 pages to feel like a fully completed work. the bodyguard trope is a tried and true formula so the romance worked, and i was pleasantly surprised at how tense and suspenseful the third act was.
now for my gripes: in general i couldn't fully picture any of the characters in my head because neither their physical features nor personalities were described besides basic features. eve is fit and katherine is beautiful, but what else? the prose hyper focused on what the pov character was feeling in the moment, but was too superficial go beyond that.
but my biggest issue with this book was that i just couldn't get myself to like katherine. she was written with a nice enough personality, but my views on inherited wealth are similar to eve's, and the attempts to justify katherine's childish behavior and entitlement didn't at all sway me the way it seemed to completely sway eve. and while the romance was cute, eve went from staunch anti-monarchist to lady katherine simp in what felt like a single chapter, which was in my opinion way too quick of a switch from a mindset so deeply ingrained in eve she had purposefully in her entire career never taken royal clients.
side tangent, but most of the blame regarding the initially strained relationship between eve and katherine was placed on eve, which i didn't think was fair given eve's background as a daughter of a working class family who experienced firsthand the inherent corruption and unfairness of royalty. so katherine is completely absolved of her involuntary yet nonetheless implicit involvement in centuries of wealth disparity because she ~works in philanthropy~ and ~gives money to charity~?? miss me with that bullshit.
still enjoyed overall. good premise and romance, but the quality would have benefited if more time was invested in making katherine less insufferable.