May Contain Spies
by J.A. Cipriano
Genre: Spy Thriller
Series: Meet Abby Banks #1
Source
digital copy via Janeal & Sarah
Purchase
Amazon | Barnes&Noble | Kobo | Apple | Google Play
Abby Banks is your typical sixteen-year-old girl, except that her entire life has been one big lie. Kidnapped as a young girl and fostered by a government agency as collateral, Abby never knew she was important… until her mom’s terrorist organization unleashes a devastating attack on the facility.
I hit the ground and stumbled, my tennis shoes slipping on the wet concrete below. I wobbled, arms flailing out like a pair of windmills as I crashed onto the cold stone. I swallowed once, nausea rising in my throat as I felt something wet and slimy seep into my jeans. There was a thud beside me and something grabbed my wrist and pulled me to my feet.
“Well, that was fun.” Stephen’s voice echoed in the sewer like we were in an ancient cavern. “That wasn’t exactly how I envisioned today going.”
“Oh?” I murmured and before I could stop myself, blurted out. “How did you expect it to go?”
I felt his hand grow warm, and somehow, I knew he was blushing. He let me go rather suddenly and took a step forward into the murk.
“Not like this,” he mumbled. His voice had lost that strange confidence it’d had during the gunfight. I watched him fumble with something and a beam of light pierced the darkness. His flashlight was so bright in the gloom that I had to shield my eyes from it.
“We need to keep moving or they’ll catch us,” he added before taking a few steps away from me. Evidently, he felt safer with at least a foot between us. If my mom could see us now she’d laugh. Then she’d get a ruler to make sure we stayed at least twelve inches apart at all times.
I received a digital copy of this book from Janeal & Sarah, Author Services in exchange for my honest and unbiased review. Thanks for the copy! All are my own opinion and is not compensated by any individual, organization, or company. This might contain minor spoilers.
First Impressions
What actually made me picked this book is the cover! I liked it. It’s an hourglass with what looks like a busy cityscape on the top and a ruined cityscape below. It made me think that the book must be all about a game of choice and a race against time which is actually what I really loved about spy thriller books.
The Story
I had already assumed that after Abby learned the truth about her identity, she will be cocky and let ‘Kraken do the work’—but it did not turn out like that. Abby is like a trophy in a never-ending war game; whoever side has it is the winner. She’s weak and always appeared helpless. Stephen is a shy mystery yummy spy guy who fell in love with Abby while on duty.
I love the complexity of their characters. For me, they look good together and have a pretty fair chemistry. But how quickly their romance bloomed is a bit dubious. It’s quick and I cannot see a pretty firm foundation to agree with it.
The story is really great; action-wised, situation-wised. I love how to author continuously feeding me up with fake truths and real lies that even I felt the same way Abby does: confused. Who is the bad guy? Who is the good guy? Who should Abby trust? It is amazing. I cannot fully figure out who is who from whom. Other than that, everything else is predictable.
I only saw a clear character development from Abby. Chloe and Roberto are both good characters and I wanted to learn more about them. The characters are all great but needed more back story.
The Verdict
Overall, I enjoyed it. It kept me intrigued until the end of the pages and still craving to know what’s next after the cliff-hanger ending.
When J. A. Cipriano was in second, grade his teacher gave everyone in class a journal to write down whatever they wanted. Their first subject was to write about something they didn’t like. J. A. chose to write about why he didn’t like writing. His reasoning was simple. He had bad handwriting. Even then he was destined to be an engineer due to his messy scrawl.
Unfortunately, he found through the course of this little adventure that he actually liked writing. That year was sort of the high point for his writing career because he won a writing contest for the state. He got to go to a big dinner and his teacher was all dressed up.
He kept writing little stories, year after year, and in sixth grade, won another contest. In seventh grade he broke his arm and got the cast signed by both Dean Koontz and Stan Lee. It is, by far, the coolest cast he’s owned. That was about the time he found video games and anime. His writing turned mostly toward fanfiction until about ninth grade where he wrote his first novel, a small book about twenty thousand words called Revelations. In sophomore year, he wrote two more books to complete the trilogy because he saw Star Wars that year and learned trilogies were the cool thing to do.
Since then, he’s written six more novels, four of which are in the Lillim Callina Series, and one in the Abby Banks series. The other is stuck in a drawer for time undetermined. He’s writing his next book now which is about werewolves fighting mummies in Ancient Egypt. After that, he will move onto Abby Banks 2. The Spy Within will come out in June or July.
J.A. also has three chinchillas. Two of them are grey and because of this, they are named Slate and Cadmium. The third is named Jet because he’s black, and Jet is old English for black. See, creative. He also has a cat named Turtle. This does pose problems for his two-year-old from time to time.
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