Lily Vale is on a mission to take down the psychotic and evil assassin, Jude St. Laurent. She is also an assassin who works for SHADO, the same covert homeland security agency St. Laurent was a part of. Lily despises Jude because she believes he is responsible for killing her gentle father and many other innocent Americans. Her superior, Robert Dietz has kept Jude alive for his own personal reasons that Lily is not all that aware of. It is believed that Jude has secret computer files on weapons of mass destruction that cannot fall into the wrong hands. Dietz has erased Jude's memory for the sole purpose of getting Lily working as Jude's personal assistant to find the missing files and poison Jude where he'll hopefully die a horrible and painful death. Lily welcomes the mission because she wants Jude to pay.
Jude has a great deal of short term memory loss. All he knows is that he was in a car accident, which made him legally blind. He has horrible headaches and suffers from depression where he spends his days working on his erotic paintings and seducing his models. But, this still doesn't stop the nightmares of murder and death he has almost every night. Along with his friend, and sometimes lover and live in chef Liam O'Neil, he has a life of privilege and decadence anyone would wish for. Until he can regain his memory, the darkness he tries to keep away begins to consume him. Things may change for the better when Lily comes into his life. Jude knows she is a keeper when she doesn't even bat an eyelash at his over the top sexual antics. And when Lily welcomes him in her bed and allows him to do whatever he likes to her to bring them pleasure; he begins to have hope again.
As Lily grows closer to Jude, she is very confused, because he doesn't seem to be the cold blooded killer she believes him to be. With Dietz breathing down her neck to get the job done, Lily must decide to either kill Jude, let him live or do her own investigating, because nothing is what it seems and one wrong move on her end could get her killed.
I Spy a Wicked Sin was very lacking in the erotic romance department. Not only are the situations and actions of the characters laugh out loud ridiculous, but the majority of the love scenes are very weakly written with no chemistry and incredibly bad dialogue. We are shown in great detail what Jude enjoys in bed and wants in a sex partner, but his finesse is really lacking. Jude comes across as very one-dimensional and his emotional outbursts are more like those of a spoiled rich boy. There is simply nothing to recommend about Jude and the lack of tension in regards to whether he can regain his memory failed in keeping my interest. Lily is just as ridiculous from the moment she spies Jude with one of his many women. Even though she is playing a role, her actions are very confusing. One minute she wants to make Jude suffer, the next she wants to love him because he gives her a few moments of pleasure at the dinner table.
This supposed espionage tale has no excitement. The characters are very dull in their personalities. The love scenes that should be hot and smoldering are not, even though there are many bed hopping scenes, sharing of partners, using sex toys and other scandalous intimacies. Instead of being shocked, I found myself yawning. I also couldn't help but laugh at certain points, especially in regards to Jude, who must be the best multi-tasker alive because not only was he a deadly assassin who was never caught, but still had enough free time to create priceless works of art. The only redeemable character in this whole story was Liam, who as a secondary character could have brought so much more to the plot as a whole, but wasn't fleshed out enough.
Jo Davis has really missed the mark with I Spy a Wicked Sin. Robert Dietz is a pathetic type of villain, Lily is very wishy washy, and Jude is a very lacking hero, spy and sensual lover who supposedly both men and women can't help but worship. If you are looking for a well-written action packed erotic romance, look elsewhere.
Katiebabs
