EricaO

I am officially tired of this series, which is so saddening for me. For any new readers reading this, I recommend the first three or four books, and then not continuing. While there have been plotlines and moments throughout each subsequent book that have been worth reading, on the whole, each book is a copy of the one before.
How many times does she have to get kidnapped? For someone who should be fairly aware of her surroundings by now and someone who can fight back, men are always making off with her. I'm tired of the near-rapes. I am tired of her never-consummated, never-realized relationship with Jamie; I don't care if they wind up together but either get it together or drop it. This constant "Hey, here we are, let's get marriedOH NO! Something bad happened and now we're separated again!" thing is exhausting and silly. I'm tired of her shacking up with random people who take care of her until Jamie gets back, of her harvesting loyal followers wherever she is, of her coming up with brilliant plans to save the day when her followers can't be bothered to rescue her...again.
This story is like all the ones that came before only dressed in different garb. Now she's running around pretending to be Chinese/Indian. She's back in the spy biz, only this time, she assigned herself the mission. People in her world are idiots and very few ever catch on to what she's doing. I guess there were a lot of nearly-bald, blonde-ponytailed pretend-Asians running around London during that time?
It borders on ridiculous.
Also, at this point, Jacky knows 1 out of every 5 people in a crowd the world over. The world's populace was MUCH smaller at the beginning of the 1800's, apparently.
This story gets particularly eye-roll-worthy with all the literary name-dropping. She's riding along Blackmoore Heath, or wherever she is, and finds a sign that says "Baskervilles." She doesn't know if it's an area, a manor, or what, but she hears a hound baying in the distance. Granted, younger readers aren't going to get this reference nor will it make any difference to them because it has no bearing on the story whatsoever. But fans of Sherlock Holmes may well roll their eyes and think, "Really? You went there? Was that necessary?"
Ditto the Highwayman. There are direct quotes from the poem. "Bess, the Landlord's dark-haired daughter" and such. I was singing Loreena McKennitt's rendition of the song for days afterward. While that wasn't bad, the earworm I mean, I was irritated by the whole thing.Now Jamie is the tragic figure in a poem written in the early 1900's? It was just too much. I've mostly enjoyed the historical accuracy - real Naval ship names, real characters from the time period, etc - throughout the series but this is going overboard.
Side Note: I do find it amusing that the war ship Temeraire has been mentioned several times in this series because it makes me think of the dragon from Naomi Novik's alternate-reality historical fiction series about the same "ship"...and come to think of it, that series has the exact same problem this one has.
This book gets a second star because of the reader. I give her full credit for maintaining characters, for being as enthusiastic of a reader as she was for the first book, and for adding depth to the story via vocalization, depth that is lacking in the story itself.