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Six Impossible Things

I mentioned this in a previous “Whatcha Reading” and I totally admit that the title and the cover got me interested. I like Boyle’s writing, and I enjoy her books, but it was the gorgeousness of the cover moved this one up the TBR pile. Marketing: it works!

Rosalie Stratton’s father worked in the Home Office as a spymaster and diplomat. Of all his children, she is the one who inherited all his skills and his brains. Of course, since she’s a girl, it’s simply impossible that she put those skills to good use…until she just does anyway, with the support of her uncle and a few other people.

Brody, Baron Rimswell, also works for the Home Office, and he’s had a number of run-ins with a mysterious masked woman, Asteria, who might work with the Home Office (or maybe the Russians?) and those run-ins seem to always end with a passionate make-out session. As so often happens.

Rosalie and Brody have known each other since they were children, and she’s both annoyed and amused that he doesn’t recognize her when she’s in her guise as Asteria. When they’re caught in a compromising position, they must do the responsible thing and get married, and then figure out how to sort out their lives as spies and spouses. The romance is based on figuring out how a partnership works- Rosalie is NOT going to be a quiet wife, and Brody needs to rethink his ideas of what being a husband means. His parents didn’t give him a good template for a successful, happy marriage, so he needs to figure it out for himself.

What I liked best about Six Impossible Things was Rosalie and her determination that she would use her talents to help King and Country, whether King and Country liked it or not. She’s a patriot in the purest sense, and she’s got a brilliant mind that’s working two steps ahead of everyone else. Once Brody figures that out – that she’s as smart and talented and brave as anyone he’s ever met – he’s on her team. I love terrifyingly competent heroines and the heroes that adore them.

This is the sixth book in a series, and I have not read all of them. While I think you can read this as a stand-alone, I have a feeling there are some through-lines that might have more of a payoff if I had read all of the other books. I had a conversation with someone who has read all of this series, and she said that it’s not at that clear how all of these couples intersect (“How is that a SERIES?”). So maybe I didn’t miss a through line.

– Redheadedgirl

In the sixth novel of the enchanting Rhymes With Love series from New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Boyle, a nobleman falls in love with a beautiful spy he must protect…

Lord Rimswell is a man of honor and absolutes. If he says something is impossible, it is. Yet his life of right and wrong is turned upside down when he finds himself in a compromising situation with the most unyielding, yet maddeningly beautiful, woman in London. If only he had not given in to the irresistible temptation to kiss her. Now he must marry her.

Miss Roselie Stratton is the very definition of impossible—headstrong, outspoken, and carrying a reticule of secrets that could ruin more than her reputation. Kissing Brody is hardly the most ruinous thing Roselie has ever done as a secret agent for the Home Office…nor will she let a marriage of convenience stop her from continuing her work. Little does Roselie realize that she has underestimated Brody’s resolve to keep her safe—for he has hopelessly fallen in love with her and is determined to do the impossible by stealing her heart in return.