Ally Carter (The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year) returns to the world of international espionage--and identical twins--in her lively, well-plotted second rom-com for adults, The Blonde Who Came in from the Cold. Carter continues the story of the sisters introduced in The Blonde Identity, this time focusing on Alex Sterling and her decade-long love-hate relationship with fellow spy Michael "King" Kingsley. When the two wake up handcuffed together in the dark, six years after Kingsley left the CIA and a year after Alex disappeared altogether, they must use their combined skills to ace their greatest mission yet.
Carter's twisty narrative flips back and forth between the present-day mission and the stages of Alex and King's relationship, from Alex's days as a Langley rookie to the times they posed as a couple. Merritt, their elegant, sarcastic spymaster and King's Judi Dench-esque surrogate grandmother, has her own reasons for repeatedly pairing them, but even their crackling mutual attraction doesn't neutralize the dangers of the job. Carter peels back the layers of Alex's bravado to reveal her secrets, the biggest one being her own insecurity. She also explores the weight of King's three-generation family legacy in the CIA. As they crisscross Europe in search of an ex-Soviet kingpin and some highly incriminating evidence, these two spies are forced to finally confront their greatest vulnerability: their feelings for each other.
With rapier-sharp wit and disarming tenderness, plus plenty of high-speed chases and a few explosions, Carter delivers a snarky-but-sweet romance cloaked in a thoroughly entertaining spy thriller. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams