Spy Fall is a crazy historical romance about a French paratrooper spy named Marie who crash lands on top of a drunken English Lord named Dunsmore. The story is insane but it’s a ton of fun, although the ending is a bit of a mess.

The heroine of Spy Fall, Marie, is part of a family of balloonists — people who fly hot air balloons, although technically some are powered by hydrogen gas and others by hot air. Marie does exhibition shows in which she parachutes from a hydrogen-powered balloon. She’s also a spy, and although she claims to have landed on the Dunsmore estate accidentally, she’s actually trying to get some incriminating evidence with regard to Dunsmore’s father. Dunsmore is a rake but he is no dummy, and he immediately develops both a huge attraction to Marie and a conviction that she is up to no good. I hate controlling relationships, but I love a sparring match between two people who are clearly equals, and Dunsmore and Marie are a kick to watch in action since they are so equally matched.

In this kind of book, it’s much easier to sum up what’s wrong with it (so much, you guys) than what’s right. I enjoyed the smarts of the main characters, their adventurous spirits, the overall tone of “Hey, let’s have a good time running around in breeches and doing crazy things,” and the chemistry between Dunsmore and Marie. There’s a gonzo style to this book that I just adore. Plus, I love the twist on the Regency romance. I’ve read an awful lot of Regency romances and I’ve yet to read one in which a pants-wearing female French spy parachutes onto a drunk duke who thinks she’s an angel. It takes “meet cute” to a whole new level.

I also enjoyed the fact that a lot of the “that would never happen” moments that involve ballooning actually happened. Marie is loosely based on Elisa Garnerin. She was a professional parachutist from 1815 to 1836. Several incidents in the book are also similar to things that happened to Sophie Blanchard, a balloonist who flew from around 1800 until her death in a ballooning accident in 1819. This is a fun book by any measure, but knowing the history made it so much more fun – I delighted in recognizing real events buried in the story.

This is the kind of book that embraces the crazy, and it walks a delicate line with it. The right degree of crazy is perfect fun but too much crazy stretches belief. I’m fine with the ballooning stuff (see below). I’m fine with the spy stuff and the illegitimate child subplot (other than it’s resolution) and Marie’s breeches and Dunsmore’s fascination with her wearing men’s underwear and the avalanche of side characters with their own side plots.

But the sex is just ridiculous. The first time Dunsmore and Marie do the deed it is in the air, in her balloon, which – OK they would actually die, but I’ll go with it, because that’s just the kind of book this is. But when Marie is hiding under Dunsmore’s desk and she gives him a secret blowjob WHILE HE’S TALKING TO HIS DAD who is right there in the room – no. All the no. That is not sexy to me.

Alas, not all is blissful crazysauce in the land of Spy Fall. Things come crashing to a disappointing end with the botched conclusion. There were some really sad components to the HEA that weren’t acknowledged. There was one subplot in particular that the characters seemed to think ended in triumph and happiness but that I thought was terribly sad or at best bittersweet.

Spoiler: Did no one notice that the plot moppet just lost her beloved father, and that everyone lied about it? She’ll have to know that he’s not coming back eventually, and in fact if Dunsmore has his way, plot moppet will grow up to learn that her second adoptive father was responsible for the death of her first adoptive father? Yes, Dad #1 turned out to be a possessive psycho, but the one thing everyone agreed on was that he loved that kid and the kid loved him. Kid’s gonna have issues. I’m just sayin’. But everyone is all, “Oh, things are great, we told Plot Moppet that her dad went on a trip and we bought her a pony, and now she’s all happy!” Mark my words, there’s going to be a sequel in which she kills all these people with an axe.

There was also a great compromise between Marie and Dunsmore regarding her continuing to fly after they get together. This little moment was one of my favorite parts of the book, but just a few pages later it’s completely undercut in one of the most frustrating moments I’ve ever read.

Spoiler rant: Marie and Dunsmore agree that even though he hates seeing her in danger, she will continue flying except for when she’s pregnant, since that would put the baby as well as herself at risk. Great compromise. This passage was one of my favorite moments in the book. But then as soon as Marie gets pregnant she says that she thinks she might give up flying anyway because now she has so much to live for. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. There is zero indication elsewhere in the story that she craves danger or that at some point she suffered from depression and had little to live for. In fact, Dunsmore brings it up, and she says she just loves the sensation of flying. Having a baby makes you reconsider your priorities and your options. It does not cause you to have a frontal lobotomy. This is not a happy ending – it’s depressing and demeaning. It suggests that once we are properly domesticated we will finally give up our crazy whims and settle down. I have so much rage over this I could just spit.

I was let down by the end and the sex scenes veered wildly from sexy to awkward to appalling (DAD IN ROOM!), but boy, the verbal spying and the plot crazysauce was entertaining. It’s so sad that the end was rage inducing. In fact, if you skip the last chapter it’s a much better book. I’m giving it an even C for being all over the place in terms of quality – parts were an A, parts were an F, and there was whole lot of WTF in both good and bad ways. If you skip the last chapter, it’s a B.