Review: LACEY GOES TO TOKYO by C.H. Lyn

Graphic Image designed by Sandra Lopez

International travel means international danger.

Lacey Devaine is a four-year veteran of a spy ring which fronts as an exclusive escort service, Miss Belle's Travel Guides. Maintaining her cover is Lacey's number one priority to protect the integrity of the operation she works for.

While on assignment in Tokyo, a nosy newspaper reporter threatens to blow the lid off a scandal that will put dozens of innocent lives at risk. To protect her cover, Miss Belle is called in to act on intelligence Lacey has uncovered.

Can these beautiful, intelligent, and deadly women complete this assignment in time and emerge unscathed? Or will this mission be their last?

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My review: Miss Belle runs an escort service, but, secretly, the girls do much more. But they’re not just girls; they’re women—strong, beautiful, smart, independent women. One of the girls is Lacey, a mousy bookworm set to fly to Tokyo on a mission.

The whole thing had a slow start as Miss Belle explains in ambiguous terms the house and the girls that live in it. As Lacey boards a flight and heads to Tokyo, things are still not as clear, but the narrative clearly lays the groundwork on a spy theme.

Lacey is very stealth, organized, and methodical. Told in 1^st person POV (Lacey’s view,) story combines the travel guide of Tokyo sites and the ingenuity of a covert mission (which they’re very cagey about.) Lacey relays the day-to-day of the trip and the job in a diary format. The whole thing was well-written, but a quicker pace would’ve made it more exciting. At first, it seems to concentrate more on Lacey’s personal journey and past, but, as you get more into it, the top secret mission slowly unravels.

I get that the story was trying be mysterious, but I kind of wish it would’ve been more direct rather than use a bunch of euphemisms and speculations. Why couldn’t Lacey or Miss Belle just say what they did? Why couldn’t either one of them say what the mission was? I think I really needed that info early on.

I’m all for girl power, which this book seems to exude. I like stories that paint women out as intelligent and strong, and it may even persuade me to read the next book in the series.  I just hope that it’s a little clearer and less complex.

My rating: 3 stars