The Nursery by Asia MacKay

          3.5 Stars

After reading Asia Mackay's debut novel, Killing It, I was really looking forward to this one.  Sure enough I was not disappointed when we take back up with Lex right in the middle of a dramatic firefight to rescue an agent whose cover has been blown.  The team seem to have survived the perfidy of the first novel and are still fighting the good fight for the Country.  Even better this is all sandwiched up against Lex's attempts to be a "normal" mother to Gigi and wife to Dan.

To be honest whilst all the super-spy stuff is fun and creates a wonderful dichotomy between real life and work life that is not where the joy of the story lies.  In all honesty some of it does become a little tedious - we get it, Lex has no conscience about killing and will do what needs to be done without batting an eyelash.  The real joy is in watching her trying to cope with Motherhood.  Her early diatribe about how she is affecting her daughter by saying she looks pretty (potential to make her believe only looks matter), giving her a doll to play with (reinforcing gender stereotypes) is not only spot on but hilariously related on the page.

The story itself centres around a visit from a senior Chinese Politician and her team and the fact that the shadowy Tenebris Network have facilitated a hit on this politician.  Platform Eight are down to skeleton staff as someone in one of the security services is leaking information to Tenebris and only Lex and Jake's team are operational.  It is down to them to not only foil the assassination plot but to dismantle Tenebris and save the Security Services as a whole.  Even more importantly Lex has to somehow keep her marriage together and keep up with the demands of Gigi's Nursery - honestly Miss Yvonne sounds like a complete nightmare.

Whilst this is undoubtedly a fun read, the fact that the whole Tenebris plot has a resolution that not only do you see coming from a mile away but bears startling similarities to the plot of the first novel really spoilt it for me.  Initially I was really gunning for this one but as more and more became revealed about the action Platform Eight and Six were taking on this joint task it became resoundingly clear that we were on very familiar territory and by half way through I was more or less skipping the "work" bits and only reading for the "mum" bits.

THIS IS AN HONEST REVIEW OF A FREE COPY OF THE BOOK RECEIVED FROM READERS FIRST.