Sugar Plum Spies

Section 47, Book 2

By: Jennifer Estep

Narrated by: Helen Laser, Lance Danton, Nathaniel Black

New York Times best-selling author Jennifer Estep serves up an action-packed holiday adventure in her Section 47 urban-fantasy world of secrets, lies, and superspies with amazing magical abilities. Perfect for fans of Alias, Die Hard, James Bond, Jason Bourne, Nikita, True Lies, and Netflix’s Bodyguard.

Visions of sugar plums...

Most spies take a break for the holidays, but not me, Charlotte Locke. As an analyst for Section 47, a secret spy organization, I normally use my magical form of synesthesia to uncover lies and track paramortal criminals from the comfort of my cubicle. But tonight I’m going out into the field, along with my partner, Desmond Percy, a powerful galvanist.

Instead of enjoying Christmastime in the city, I’m in a German castle, dressed like a toy soldier and masquerading as a waitress at a swanky Christmas Eve party. My mission? To gather information that will help Section 47 track down a dangerous enemy.

Despite the glitz and glamour, I can’t shake the sense that something is wrong—and that Desmond and I might not leave the party alive.

Dances of death...

My name is Desmond Percy, although I’ve had many aliases during my years working as a cleaner for Section 47. But I’ve never had a real partner until Charlotte Locke.

My part of the mission is simple: pretend to be a guest and keep an eye on things at the party while Charlotte uses her synesthesia to track down the information we need. But what starts out as a sugar plum dream quickly turns into a holiday nightmare.

Forget the mission. All I want for Christmas is to keep Charlotte safe.

Note: Sugar Plum Spies is a 47,000-word book. It is book two in the Section 47 series, but it can also be listened to as a stand-alone holiday adventure.

©2022 Jennifer Estep (P)2022 Audible, Inc.

an exciting holiday mission

Charlotte Locke and Desmond Percy are spending Christmas in a German castle undercover. They are searching for any information about Henrika Hyde and any information on her associates. But this Christmas party quickly gets dangerous and Desmond and Charlotte have to work fast to stop another disaster from happening.

This was another enjoyable story with Charlotte and Desmond. Charlotte continues to be a smart and fascinating heroine. Her abilities continue to be extremely helpful in her line of work and I really like seeing how she utilizes them. Like the previous book, Charlotte does spend most of her time working on her own to thwart the bad guys. Desmond helps at times but he is dealing with his own part of the mission. I definitely enjoy seeing Charlotte outsmart the terrorists and save the day.

Desmond is just as suave and deadly as he was in the previous book. I enjoyed seeing Desmond struggling with his feelings to protect Charlotte during the mission, but he never stops her from doing her duty. These two’s relationship has grown since the previous book, but you can tell they are still in the early phase of their relationship. This was an intense and action packed holiday for these two. I enjoyed the continuation of their story and the progress made towards finding Henrika.

I did have two issues with this book though. One, they changed the narrator for Desmond. I definitely preferred the previous narrator but I do think Lance Danton did a decent job. I was just used to the previous narrator. Two, this is an extremely minor story issue that probably only bothers me because I am an archivist. You don’t wear white gloves when handling rare books. You are more likely to damage a book wearing gloves because of lack of dexterity. If you want to handle rare books, just wash your hands first. Clean hands are the standard. Neither of these issues affected my rating but I just needed to point them out.

Another entertaining Section 47 novel

I really enjoyed this book, although not quite as much as the series debut. Charlotte and Desmond are so good together. Gabriel is such a fascinating character and I hope we get much more of him in the future. The action scenes in this book were really well done.

Feels Abridged - Unsatisfying

I enjoyed the first book, it was enjoyable and fun, this book not so much. Story and characters are not well fleshed out, I felt cheated since I had expected more like the first book in the series - more like a 'full' novel. Totally unsatisfying - a cheap story. Improvement on the narrator/performance by Lance Danton for Dundee compared to Grant Cartwright (who I thought was awful).

Sugar and spice and 80s nice

This was a fun little nutcracker. Like any good Christmas caper, this book leans into accents, banter, and 80s style heist plots. I think I preferred the faster pace and more basic mystery procedural format to the longer, more complicated spy thriller from book 1.

I’m not sure it added to the story to keep double-viewing every scene, first from Charlotte’s POV, then rewinding and showing us the same scene from Desmond’s POV. It also felt like there were a lot of recaps and info dumps to explain the paranormal magic system, rules of spy-craft, and the who’s who from the past book.

Two slightly off things were the handful of F bombs and the tonal shift in the sex scene at the end. Although it was one of the author’s better written scenes, and it wasn’t super explicit, it still seemed more for cable than TV audiences. Ultimately, this new series has pulpy popcorn potential. I will definitely move on when book 3 comes out.

Nutcrackers

The second book in the Section 47 series. This one was just as good as the first. Lots of action takes place in this one. Romance is saved to the end. Desmond, Charlotte and Gabriel all handle themselves well in this episode. Charlotte and Desmond are undercover on an Op at the castle of a wealthy antiques dealer who is holding a Christmas Eve party to show off the famous gem she has acquired. Gabriel somehow has wrangled an invite to the party also. When the time is right both Charlotte and Desmond slip out to complete their mission of retreiving some vital information, but something goes wrong and all hell breaks out. Charlotte and Desmond may not walk away from this one, maybe not even Gabriel. I truly hope there are plans for a book three. Charlotte and Desmond have grown on me and I look forward to more of their escapades.

short and lacking

it was VERY short, and most of the book was just switching back and forth between people's heads with no real story line. not worth a credit