Note: I wrote this in a rush and may need to come back and edit it. I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. It's a shame because I do love the overall story, but I simply was not grabbed by its execution. The characters were all one dimensional and during action packed or romantic scenes I felt bored. The story took awhile to develop and when it did I felt no passion for it. I needed (or Langdon needed) something that conveyed interest. I wanted her to blush, stutter, have a tear in her eye as she reluctantly pulled away. She seemed too nonchalant as she pushed him aside for her cousin. There is nothing wrong with this, but if I were Langdon I wouldn't have bothered pursuing Julia because she showed no outward interest toward him other than friendship. Julia begins to develop feelings for Langdon, but ignores them because her cousin Phoebe declared to be in love with him. Julia is beautiful, kind, a musical genius and her only fault is not having a large dowry. Our heroine is Julia and niece/ward to Wilhern. And Langdon is commissioned by the War Office to find out more about who stole the diary and their traitorous plans. This is not a spoiler because there is no mystery about it. Wilhern who happens to be a spy for France and arranges to have the diary stolen. Not knowing it was anything more than a simple diary, he mentions said diary to Mr. It follows Nicholas Langdon as he returns from the war front with a diary he was asked to deliver on behalf of a dying soldier. The extra half star is because I did enjoy the books overall premise. It simply didn't flow and often felt as though the narrator was simply listing things off for me: 'She did this. Being easy to read was not the issue I had with this, nor did it contain poor grammar. That was an unfair assumption on my part because just because a book is easy to read and doesn't have a ton of big words does not mean it is poorly written. For awhile I avoided reading romance and YA books because I thought the writing to be too simplistic and easy to read. It came out as very simplistic and almost robotic at times. It had regency era balls, romance, and espionage, what's not to love?

A Spy's Devotion by Melanie Dickerson