Spymaster’s Lady Series – Joanna Bourne Free Audiobook

Written by Joanna Bourne
Read by Kirsten Potter
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Author’s note about the order of the books: “The books are stand-alone, but this is the order I suggest reading them, because this is the order in which I discovered the story and the characters.”

The order in which the events of their stories occur: Forbidden Rose 1794, Spymaster’s Lady,1802, Rogue Spy 1802, My Lord Spymaster 1811, Black Hawk 1794-1818

Her website also lists the characters of each book..

The Spymaster’s Lady
The Spymaster’s Lady Series, Book 1/1802
Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
Release date: May 4, 2010
Duration: 11:34:35

She’s braved battlefields. She’s stolen dispatches from under the noses of heads of state. She’s played the worldly courtesan, the naÔve virgin, the refined British lady, even a Gypsy boy. But Annique Villiers, the elusive spy known as the Fox Cub, has finally met the one man she can’t outwit…

British spymaster Robert Grey must enter France and bring back the brilliant, beautiful-and dangerous-Fox Cub. His duty is to capture her and her secrets for England. When the two natural enemies are thrown into prison, they forge an uneasy alliance to break free. But their pact is temporary and betrayal seems inevitable as the fates of nations hang in the balance.

Annique Villiers holds the plans to Napoleon’s invasion of England. The British order their operative Robert Grey to retrieve the plans by any means. An unlikely romance develops as these rival spies attempt to outwit each other. Kristen Potter’s understated French accent evokes Annique’s Gallic insouciance and provides deadpan humor for her miraculous escapes. Grey’s proper British accent suggests devilish humor and stony determination. Minor characters have equally memorable voices. Potter delivers both banter and perilous situations with impeccable timing. Whether the characters face French prisons or rogue assassins, Potter’s reading strengthens the story’s well-wrought tension. Let’s hope Potter and Bourne team up again. C.A. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2012

My Lord and Spymaster
Spymaster Series, Book 2/1811
Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc.
Release date: May 20, 2014
Duration: 11:11:31

Sebastian Kennett is a self-made man-passionate, adventurous, and powerful; a master trader and international shipper; a man who’ll risk everything for a profit. Jess Whitby grew up on the mean streets of the East End. Her father’s a fine rogue and sometime smuggler. His canny trading and her brilliant management have built them a fortune. Then one of Sebastian’s ships goes down and a traitor is to blame. All the Whitbys’ money won’t protect Jess’s father from an accusation of treason. What happens when they fall in love-the man hungry for vengeance and the woman who’s going to save her father at all costs?

June 16, 2008
Bourne’s latest espionage-based series historical entices with subtle subterfuge and heated romance. Jess Whitby, daughter of suspected spy Josiah Whitby, is doing everything in her power to exonerate her imprisoned father. In order to free him, she must prove that someone other than her father is the Cinq, a notorious mole. But Jess has met her match in Capt. Sebastian Kennett, wealthy bastard son of an English nobleman, equally as clever at keeping tabs on Jess as she is at tracking him. Sebastian is responsible for Josiah’s arrest; Jess believes that Sebastian may be the Cinq; their mutual attraction proves a lovely foil for their suspicious minds. Glimpses of the leads’ sordid pasts add depth, and Bourne’s consummate way with a story line and an explosive denouement do the rest.

The Forbidden Rose
Spymaster Series, Book 3
Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc.
Release date: July 20, 2015
Duration: 11:04:21

A glittering French aristocrat is on the run, disguised as a British governess. England’s top spy has a score to settle with her family. But as they’re drawn inexorably into the intrigue and madness of Revolutionary Paris, they gamble on a love to which neither of them will admit.

returns to the French Revolution for her latest romance, this time matching up an English spy and a French aristocrat. Marguerite de Fleurignac, a noblewoman who smuggles émigrés to England, encounters William Doyle in the charred remains of her chateau outside of Paris. She needs sanctuary and agrees to let him escort her through the French countryside. Though she pretends to be Scottish and he claims to be French, no one in this book seems able to keep secrets: William knows Marguerite’s identity, she and the French secret police both know he is hunting her father, and everyone, including the secret police and the British, knows everything about the smugglers. Nonetheless, the romance is sweet, and once William and Marguerite admit their love, the ensuing adventure story is everything a spy thriller should be.

The Black Hawk
Spymaster Series, Book 4
Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc.
Release date: July 20, 2015
Duration: 10:39:51

Adrian Hawker rose up snarling out of the slums of London, a cunning thief and a skilled killer. He’s rescued from that life by the British Service, who have uses for his particular skill set.

Justine DeCabrillac, daughter of the nobility whose parents died in the chaos of the Revolution, is rescued from a decadent child brothel by a woman of the French Secret Police. Justine, too, becomes a great spy for France. Attacked on a rainy London street, Justine knows only one man can save her: Hawker, her oldest friend…her oldest enemy. London is crawling with hidden assassins, and someone is out to frame Hawker for murder. The two spies must work together to find who’s out to destroy them…

Publishers Weekly…Starred review
Bourne mixes heart-pounding mystery and romance in her spellbinding fourth Spymaster historical romantic thriller. From childhood, Adrian Hawker spied on France for England while Justine DeCabrillac gathered intelligence for the Police Sècrete. They were teens when they met in Paris in 1794, and as they grew up, their paths crossed often in a changing world. Sometimes they were on the same side, and sometimes they were opposed, but it was inevitable that they fall bittersweetly in love, knowing that any minute duty could take precedence over passion. Their tempestuous love affair unfolds in flashbacks, alternating with scenes from 1818 London, where somebody tries to kill Justine and frame Hawker, now head of the British Intelligence Service with as many enemies in England as in France. Just the right amount of intrigue makes this vivid romance a gripping page-turner.

Rogue Spy
Spymaster Series, Book 5
Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc.
Release date: November 13, 2014
Duration: 10:26:41

Ten years ago, Thomas Paxton was sent by Revolutionary France to infiltrate the British Intelligence Service. Now his sense of honor brings him back to London to confess. But instead of facing the gallows, he is given one last impossible assignment to prove his loyalty. Lovely, lying former French spy Camille Leyland is dragged from obscurity by threats and blackmail. Dusting off her spy skills, she sets out to track down a ruthless French fanatic and rescue the innocent victim he’s holding, only to find an old colleague already on the case-Pax. Old friendship turns to new love, and as Pax and Camille’s dark secrets loom up from the past, Pax is left with a choice-go rogue from the Service or lose Camille forever.

The latest Spymaster historical romantic thriller reunites Thomas “Pax” Paxton with old friends Doyle (The Forbidden Rose) and Hawker (The Black Hawk). The British and French hold an uneasy truce, but the French Revolution rages on. Camille Leyland, one of the best code-breakers working for the British Service, has personal secrets as well as professional ones. She is actually Vérité, one of the child-spies the French trained and slipped into British families. Most of those children have grown up, renounced their pasts, and gone on to live quietly in England, but Pax, or Devoir, remains one of the stealthiest spies and assassins in the Service. Cami and Pax were best friends as children and they meet again when Cami goes to meet a blackmailer who knows about her past. Sinister plots are everywhere, as the blackmailer spins his elaborate schemes, Cami and Pax lay their traps, and their families and allies make their own plans. Bourne’s latest is less intense than previous installments, and she makes much of the comedy in the various characters’ futile attempts to keep secrets from their fellow master spies.

Beauty Like the Night
Spymaster Series, Book 6
Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc.
Release date: August 1, 2017
Duration: 09:40:01

Severine de Cabrillac, orphan of the French revolution and sometime British intelligence agent, has tried to leave spying behind her. Now she devotes herself to investigating crimes in London and finding justice for the wrongly accused. Raoul Deverney, an enigmatic half-Spaniard with enough secrets to earn even a spy’s respect, is at her door demanding help. She’s the only one who can find the killer of his long-estranged wife and rescue her missing twelve-year-old daughter. Severine reluctantly agrees to aid him, even though she knows the growing attraction between them makes it more than unwise. Their desperate search for the girl unleashes treason and murder . . . and offers a last chance for two strong, wounded people to find love.

A spy-turned-detective and a winemaker who moonlights as a jewel thief find love amid treachery. As narrator Kirsten Potter deftly conveys both the distrust and the smoldering desire between Severine de Cabrillac and Raoul Deverney, their shared history is marred by the deceit and misconceptions that flourish during war. Potter skillfully develops the spark of mutual respect that ignites their slow burn, and the ultimate payoff is well worth the wait. Potter delivers a splendid portrayal of a close-knit group of Napoleonic-era spies and the complicated world they inhabit. This is the sixth book in the Spymaster series, and while it can be enjoyed as a stand-alone, loyal devotees of the series will be richly rewarded. K.M.P. � AudioFile 2017, P