Mr. and Mr. Smith

Fisher Braun -- British spy
Zach Allen - American spy
Location -- various hideouts in and around London

Mr. and Mr. Smith is a good, action packed romance. Zack is an undercover CIA agent working on bringing down a terrorist organization that kidnaps people and auctions them off to the highest bidder. Fisher is a British spy with many enemies and he is on the auction list.

Zach and Fisher have hooked up, but Fisher doesn’t tell Zack he is a spy. Zach doesn’t tell Fisher he was targeted because he is a spy. We get their back story, how they met, how they got together and why Zack intervenes to help Fisher and Nathan, who is with Fisher when he is kidnapped.

Zack, Fisher & Company take on the bad guys. Lots of bullets are expended. Lots of blood is shed. This book does not suffer from a lack of action. Action both in and out of the bedroom.

I had one problem, though. I had trouble keeping Zack and Fisher straight in my head. I found myself reading along thinking, who is talking in this scene? Am I sure this is the person I thought it was? My confusion affected my reading speed.

I liked the romance and the interaction between everyone on the team. I want Nathan (from Fisher’s team) and Helena (Zach’s CIA handler) to get an HEA. Or maybe Nathan/Helena/Brighton? The heros of next book are Hunter, a German spy and Will, who for the moment appears to be one of the bad guys. There is much work to be done to bring down the terrorist organization.

Intrigue Level -- 4 Stars
Heat Level -- 5 Stars (The Good Kind Of Heat)
Total -- 4 stars

HelenKay Dimon has been an auto-buy author for me from the moment I discovered her books. I adore her stories and especially love when she writes in the romantic suspense genre.

Mr. and Mr. Smith was another wonderful story from Ms. Dimon. I do wish we had gotten a chance to see Fisher and Zach interact before this story started. I totally got Fisher's anger and resentment at discovering Zach's betrayal as the book opens, but without seeing them before, I wanted a bit more background to see where their relationship started. I did love the flashbacks Fisher had letting us see how they first met.

I'm a big fan of undercover stories with spies and various special agencies. The fact that both Fisher and Zach were part of the CIA, under different divisions, made it way more believable for me that they would not know anything about the other being in the agency. As both Fisher and Zach had lied about pretty much everything in their live since they met, I thought Fisher was a little over the top in his anger at Zach, but soon realized his anger came from feeling betrayed by someone he loved more than concern for his own life.

I really enjoyed the whole Pentasus storyline and look forward to what will happen with this on-going storyline over future books. Seriously love the idea of bad guys kidnapping special agents and auctioning off their deaths to the highest bidder. Why yes, I'm a bit morbid, but it is such an interesting premise to me.

I really did love the chemistry between Fisher and Zach. I hated their relationship was used against Fisher repeatedly, but could feel how much they each loved one another. Add is the super hot M/M sex scenes, and I have to say my kindle screen steamed up quite a few times.

Overall, I really enjoyed Mr. and Mr. Smith. I had issues with Fisher repeatedly throwing the fact Zach was undercover and hadn't been truthful in his face. I loved the premise of the whole Pentasus storyline and think it will be interesting to see where it goes in future books in the series.
Review copy provided by publisher

✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ FOUR-STAR ✩ REVIEW ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩

⭐ ⭐ Provided by Netgalley in Exchange for an Honest Review ⭐ ⭐

Judging a Book by it's Cover:
Two men dressed in business-type attire, black and white tone. Title font is bold, author's name is almost obscured. The title catches the eye, the synopsis piques the interest.
Looking Deeper:
Third-person POV.
While the story begins in the midst of a situation, hinting to an adrenaline-rich and action-packed thrill ride waiting to be read, it left me feeling like I'd missed some key and crucial information somewhere, so far as to checking if this book was not a later installment to a series as opposed to a series starter as the synopsis implies.
Two men meet in a bar, neither are who they appear to be. While the story moves along at a solid pace and the writing is smooth, it's consumed with espionage and the cat-and-mouse spy games best described as a Spy Thriller with only SOME Gay Romance content. Both men are strong, well-developed characters, but even at the halfway mark, it was still difficult to feel any connection to either man or in the men together as an involved couple. Even though it was touted, often, that the sex was great, it had an emotional disconnect. The secondary characters helped to support the plot without being too invasive. Dialogue is strong, interaction felt natural.
By the end of the book, I was still left feeling as though Zach and Fisher had more of a workplace bond than a romantic connection, there was no tangible spark between them. The plot was interesting and had so much potential, but if fell a little flat for me. There was a lack of depth, dynamics and dimension that I look forward to in suspenseful romances that is really did not have. There were many conflicts, presented from several external sources as well as those that were self-imposed. A number of the issues were addressed and resolved, a HEA was implied, but there was just enough of an opening for the series to continue onward with the storyline without containing a full-on cliffhanger. Predictability was low and there were no real surprises to liven things up.
Overall: the writing was good and the plot had a lot of potential, but the romantic element did not ring true and the experience fell just a bit flat. I'd still recommend it to fans of Espionage / Spy Romances, but it was not a category I favored.

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Rating: [R] ~ Score: 3.9 ~ Stars: 4
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