The Masque of the Black Tulip, Lauren Willig

Boy, I wish I'd read this some other week, because this book had some parallels to crap that's going on in my real life that made me sort of uncomfortable. But once I got over that, I really liked it. It's less about spy stuff than the first one, and more about ... What in hell was it about? Miles is tall and doofy and falling in love with his best friend's sister. Henrietta has big plans to seduce him anyway, once she works out that what she's thought was annoyance since she was a tot is actually love. 

I still wish Willig would ditch the framing device, because those chapters flat-out suck. But if you skip them, there's a sweet and funny Regency (kinda) romance in here, wrapped in a spy mystery that makes little-to-no sense. It is a perfect beach read, even if you don't normally read romances. (Just, seriously, skip all the present-day chapters. Bleauuuurgh.)

Grade: B

originally posted 2007