book review: covert affairs

COVERT AFFAIRS by Elizabeth Cage

As some of you may know, I'm a HUGE fan of spy novels. I read mostly YA fiction, so I've got some pretty good choices in that area. This one is the latest one I picked up. Come on, three girls doing Charlie's Angels poses on the front? Yeah, I want in. So the book is set up with three different stories in one - the girls' first three missions. Each of the stories are actually their own book, sold under the series name SPY GIRLS. I had to google it to find them, so keep that in mind. Books 4-6 are sold together as well, under the title COVERT AFFAIRS 2.

Back of the book synopsis:
Spy Rule #1: Never blow your cover.
Spy Rule #2: Never get caught.
Spy Rule #3: Never, ever fall for the guy.
Jo, Caylin, and Theresa were just average girls until they were chosen by a top-secret organization to be trained as a trio of virtually unspottable spies assigned to protect the world from any and all dangers and disasters. 
Training might’ve been a cinch, but the girls have no idea what’s in store when they have real missions in the field.
Infiltrating the American embassy in London to prevent an assassination, tracking down a missing ballerina in Eastern Europe, taking down a techno-terrorist group in Seattle - the adventures never stop.
When everything is at stake, Jo, Caylin, and Theresa must be sure to make the right choices. But even with all of their gadgets, training, and teamwork, some obstacles are just too much to handle. And sometimes love can be the biggest obstacle of all.

(Literally, I copied that from the back of the book. All the stuff in italics... it's not mine.)

Overall, I liked the book. It was easy to read - it's about two inches thick but the words are in a larger font as well. I WILL read the second one.

This is the story of Caylin, Jo, and Theresa - three newly minted "Spy Girls" - as they set out to save the world under the care and direction of Uncle Sam, their boss. The POV flips between the three girls, which annoyed me at first but once I got used to it, I actually liked that it allowed the reader to keep up with all three girls in real time.

I don't want to spoil anything, so I'm not going to talk about the plot... which leaves me almost done with this post. If you've read Ally Carter's Gallagher Girls series, or Kat Carlson's TWO LIES AND A SPY (and it's sequel), then you'll probably find this book a little harder to believe. I don't mind having to suspend reality for a while, but the girls in this story push that to the edge.

Still - I like the book. It's a fun mix of adventure, girl power, and flirting, along with friendship and saving the world.

(I probably don't need to say this but I bought the book on my own and all of the opinions expressed above are my own.)