Tangled Webs by Lee Bross
- Pub. Date: June 23, 2015
- Publisher: Disney Hyperion
- Pages:304
- Rating:3/5
- Goodreads/Amazon/Book Depository
London, 1725. Everybody has a secret. Lady A will keep yours—for a price. This sumptuous, scandalous YA novel is wickedly addictive.
Lady A is the most notorious blackmailer in the city. With just a mask and a gown to disguise her, she sweeps into lavish balls and exclusive events collecting the most valuable currency in 1725 London—secrets.
But leading a double life isn't easy. By day Lady A is just a sixteen-year-old girl named Arista who lives in fear of her abusive master, Bones, and passes herself off as a boy to move safely through the squalor of London's slums. When Bones attempts to dispose of his pawn forever, Arista is rescued by the last person she expects: Jonathan Wild, the infamous Thief Taker General who moves seamlessly between the city's criminal underworld and its most elite upper circles. Arista partners with Wild on her own terms in the hopes of saving enough money to buy passage out of London.
Everything changes when she meets Graeden Sinclair, the son of a wealthy merchant. Grae has traveled the world, has seen the exotic lands Arista has longed to escape to her whole life, and he loves Arista for who she is—not for what she can do for him. Being with Grae gives something Arista something precious that she swore off long ago: hope. He has promised to help Arista escape the life of crime that has claimed her since she was a child. But can you ever truly escape the past?
First Line: "Lord Huntington made his way through the crowded ballroom with the poise and elegance of an over-fattened Christmas goose."
Review: I had high hopes for Tangled Webs seeing how it was based in the eighteenth century which is a time period I love to read about and it had to do with a bad-ass female heroine, well that is where I felt a little let down. Lady A was not as bad-ass as I expected her to be. She is described to be the most notorious blackmailer, but I didn't get that from her character. She was the middleman in a bigger scheme of things and she actually doesn't like the life she was living and wants out.
Review: I had high hopes for Tangled Webs seeing how it was based in the eighteenth century which is a time period I love to read about and it had to do with a bad-ass female heroine, well that is where I felt a little let down. Lady A was not as bad-ass as I expected her to be. She is described to be the most notorious blackmailer, but I didn't get that from her character. She was the middleman in a bigger scheme of things and she actually doesn't like the life she was living and wants out.
What I did like about Arista was that she was a good and loyal friend. I loved how she treated Becky which made her likeable since I wasn't so thrilled with her Lady A persona. Another character I liked was Arista's partner in crime Nic the friendship between them was interesting I just wish Nic was better developed.
There was romance, but I was not feeling it. It had the insta-love feel to it and to a point I tried to let it go based on the fact that it was written in the eighteenth-century time period and things did move along rather quickly when it came to relationships back in those days, but I didn't really care for Grae either, he was not interesting and felt underdeveloped. I don't see what Arista could have possibly seen in him.
Overall Tangled Webs even with all its flaws was a fast read, but I don't see myself picking up the next book in the series.
