The Spy Who Loved Me

A James Bond Novel

By: Ian Fleming

Narrated by: Genevieve Gaunt

JAMES BOND AS YOU’VE NEVER SEEN HIM BEFORE

Unlike the rest of the books in Ian Fleming’s James Bond series, The Spy Who Loved Me is told from the perspective of a woman who fell for 007—and owes him her life.

Vivienne Michel, a precocious French Canadian raised in the United Kingdom, feels like a foreigner in every land. With only a supercharged Vespa and a handful of American dollars, she travels down winding roads into the pine forests of the Adirondacks. After stopping at the Dreamy Pines Motor Court and being coerced into caretaking at the vacant motel for the night, Viv opens the door to two armed mobsters and realizes being a woman alone is no easy task. But when a third stranger arrives―a confident Englishman with a keen sense for sizing things up―the tables are turned.

Still reeling in the wake of Operation Thunderball, Bond had planned for his jaunt through the Adirondacks to be a period of rest before his return to Europe. But that all changes when his tire goes flat in front of a certain motel…

Slow start but good ending

The beginning was slow and made me question if it had been mistitled, but it ended like the usual James Bond story I had hoped for

One of Fleming’s best!

Loved this book. If you’re expecting the book to match the movie, it’s nowhere close. Now on to the next one!

Not the movie, but not bad

I saw the movie from 1977 and wanted to see the story from the author’s perspective. However, the only thing in common between the movie and the book is the title, which I could have realized from Wikipedia.
The story is more of a romantic novel from a women’s perspective, which can be perplexing when you you know it was written by Ian Fleming.
Excellent reading by the actress. About the only real gripe I have with the story is that Bond could have gone to the police when the bad guys thought he and the girl were dead. Instead, Bond tries to hunt them down, which is kind of stupid.
The police captain later says that Bond is a killer and that’s what he does. I also think it’s just so the story can happen, otherwise it would have ended right there.
Excellent details of the characters, crime and law enforcement.
Okay, one other gripe: the boss would not have had to leave the country. Lots of lose ends or other ways for him to slither out of this crime, especially if it took place in today’s world.

if James Bond was a chick flick

more of a chick flick than an action spy novel. the whole narrative is from a naive girl

It’s different

Not withstanding his other books, this book took a long time to get to the point of being interesting and ended rather too quickly and predictable. On a scale of 0-10, I give it a ‘meh’