The Agency: A Spy in the House by Y.S. Lee

Summary

Orphan Mary Quinn lives on the edge. Sentenced as a thief at the age of twelve, she’s rescued from the gallows by a woman posing as a prison warden. In her new home, Miss Scrimshaw’s Academy for Girls, Mary acquires a singular education, fine manners, and a surprising opportunity. The school is a cover for the Agency—an elite, top secret corps of female investigators with a reputation for results—and at seventeen, Mary’s about to join their ranks.

With London all but paralyzed by a noxious heat wave, Mary must work fast in the guise of lady’s companion to infiltrate a rich merchant’s home with hopes of tracing his missing cargo ships. But the Thorold household is full of dangerous secrets, and people are not what they seem—least of all Mary.

• Number of pages: 335

Review

This was the perfect way to start off my summer reading! It’s not one of those summer love/sunshine books, but this is such a good book. I don’t even know why I put it off until now.

The whole story was quite unique. I’m not sure if girl spies are popular or not, but a girl spy in the Victorian Era? It all came out so cool.

This is the first book in a series and it starts off with how Mary was recruited. Turns out this little girl was so naughty she was going to be hanged! After a couple of years after being rescued by Miss Anne and studying at the school, Mary is recruited into this very top secret kind of agency that uses the intelligence of women to skillfully accomplish the results that their clients want. (Don’t worry they only do this for good.) Their way of thinking is this: since women in that time were never noticed let alone listened to, they should use that to their advantage. Mary is just the kind of girl that the Agency is interested in, and so she is sent to her first easy assignment.

I can't exactly review this by telling you the assignment or how it goes about in the end, mysteries are always so hard to explain without giving anything away! The only things I can say is that I was thoroughly entertained trying to decipher the who, what, when, where, and whys of this book. The ending is completely unexpected, let me tell you!

Now I really want to read the next book! From 1-10 A Spy in the House gets a 7!

P.S. i just realized that you might get the idea that this is an action packed kind of book. It wasn't really like that, more mystery less violence/action, but good either way.