#gail carriger

Genre:Adult, Historical Fiction, Romance

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Summary:

London’s best and most covert spy tries to escape the man who has always adored her.

INTELLIGENCER

Agatha Woosmoss, the Wallflower, is the greatest intelligencer of her generation. And no one knows she exists. She has been invisible, capable, and cunning for well over four decades. Her greatest skill is in her ability to go forever unnoticed. Except by one man.

VERSUS INTELLECTUAL

Pillover Plumleigh-Teignmott is a professor of ancient languages at Oxford University. He’s tried to ignore his training as an Evil Genius and live a quiet life away from politics and intrigue. When an assignment goes horribly wrong, Agatha must hide and heal. So she goes to ground with the only person who’s always kept her safe, Pillover.

Can Pillover hold onto the deadly woman who specializes in getting away? Will Agatha realize that patience is indeed a virtue, and that perhaps it is good to be noticed by the one who waits? Spinning off from the Finishing School series, this story stands on its own and spans decades but was written after Defy or Defend. May contain vampires, old injuries, lost love, and the reappearance of many favorite characters.

*Opinions*

Ambush or Adore is the latest Delightfully Deadly novel that follows Agatha Woosmoss, The Wallflower, and Pillover Plumleigh-Teignmott through their decades of loving and losing each other. Their story is interwoven between the events of all the Parasolverse books, each one of them pulling gently on strings that have a ripple effect on the world. While I am sure that this can be read as a stand-alone novel and the relationship would still pull at the heartstrings, there was something truly special after reading all the novels to seeing how these two characters who thought so little of themselves changed this universe so profoundly. However, that is kind of the point of Agatha and Pillover’s story, one does not have to be bright, flashy, and loud to make a profound difference. 

If you are the type of reader who is more interested in a cohesive plot instead of characters and their relationships, you may not enjoy this book. Especially if you haven’t read other entries into the Parasolverse series. However, I love character-focused stories, and Ambush or Adore is definitely a character-driven slow-burn romance and I couldn’t stop reading it. Agatha and Pillover constantly orbiting one another, seeing one another, for forty years, and never being able to be with one another, was the perfect among of devotion and angst for me. Carringer uses her characteristic witty banter, understanding of deep emotion, and eloquent writing to make you truly care about these characters who had just been on the periphery of other stories. I teared up at multiple points during the story, which is something I don’t usually do while reading. I feel as if this is not only Agatha and Pillover’s story but also a love letter to the fans of the Parasolverse. I am not sure the amount of enjoyment someone new to the series would get out of it, but it is an extremely fast read and probably would pique someone’s interest in the rest of the series. 

I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Agatha as I relate to her more than the rest of the protagonists in Carringer’s novels. While I enjoyed reading about her outspoken, brave, and sometimes brass heroines, there is something about a woman that nobody notices or cares about changing the world through the fact that no one notices her. Carringer never changes who Agatha is, she never becomes beautiful or becomes extroverted, yet she still has a loyal group of friends and someone who loves her for who she is, even if it also breaks his heart. As someone who considers themselves a bit plain herself, it was refreshing to see that Agatha never got some makeover to make the world see her, and Pillover, who was considered handsome, didn’t care about that at all because he saw her when no one else did. To be in her head, to see how little Agatha thought of herself, I wanted her to get her happily ever after, probably because I related to her so much. 

Pillover has always been one of my favorite secondary characters, starting as a grumpy little boy who refuses to admit he had ever had a positive feeling about anything but a book and growing into a man who did the same. He never took himself too seriously and even understood that his area of academia was obscure and while good at it, he was open to admitting when he didn’t know something or was good at something. Pillover never needed to be in the spotlight or even world-renowned like some of the other academics and Carragher’s novels. Pillover just wanted books, a fireplace, and the woman he love and that is something I can respect. There is also something so sweet and so heartbreaking about a man who knows that he is in love with someone at 13 and can’t do anything about it because of the type of woman he loves. While Pillover was human, he was almost never selfish and never asked Agatha to give him more than she could, meeting that with constant devotion and affection in his mild-mannered way. While Pillover would have survived as a confirmed bachelor, pining for his Agate, I was happy that he was finally able to get his happy ending in the most Pilloverian way possible. 

Overall I absolutely adored the story it’s definitely my favorite Delightfully Deadly novel and one of my favorite in the whole Parasolverse. I think this story holds one of the sweetest and most heartfelt romances that Carriger has written in this universe. After reading through the whole series over the last year, I’m a bit sad that I don’t have any books left. That being said, if Carriger writes in this world again, I will be one of the first to read it.

quoteablebooks:

““I’m am very sorry to say that I did not observe the interaction.” “A disappointment for you, I’m sure, for he was a remarkably fine specimen.” “Oh, my, Alexia, you shouldn’t say such things! You’re a married woman.” “True, but not a dead one.””

— Ivy Hisselpenny (Tunstell) and Lady Alexia Maccon Timeless by Gail Carriger