The Blonde Identity, by Ally Carter

March 31, 2025 Lark_Bookwyrm Book Reviews 1 ★★★★½

The Blonde Identity by Ally Carter
Series: Blonde Identity #1
Published by Avon on 8/3/2023
Genres: Romantic suspense, Contemporary Romance, Espionage
Pages: 376
Format: Kindle or ebook
Source: the library
Purchase: Amazon | Bookshop | Barnes & Noble | Audible | Chirp
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four-half-stars

Also by this author: The Most Wonderful Crime Of the Year

"A unique, delightful, hilarious, unputdownable romance… I’m wonderstruck by The Blonde Identity!" — Ali Hazelwood, New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis

The New York Times bestselling YA author of the beloved Gallagher Girls series bursts onto the adult scene with a fast-paced, hilarious road trip rom-com about a woman with amnesia who discovers she’s the identical twin sister of a rogue spy… and must team up with a rugged, grumpy operative to stay alive.

It’s the middle of the night in the middle of Paris, and a woman just woke up with no memory.

She only knows three things for certain:

1. She has a splitting headache.

2. The hottest guy she has (probably) ever seen is standing over her, telling her to run.

And oh yeah…

3. People keep trying to kill her.

She doesn’t know who. Or why. But when she sees footage of herself fighting off a dozen men there’s only one explanation: obviously. . . she’s a spy!

Except, according to Mr. Hot Guy, she’s not. She’s a spy’s identical twin sister.

Too bad the only person who knows she’s not the woman they’re looking for is this very grouchy, very sexy, very secret agent who (reluctantly) agrees to help her disappear. Which is easier said than done when a criminal organization wants you dead and every intelligence service in the world wants you caught.

Luckily, no one is looking for a pair of lovesick newlyweds on their honeymoon. And soon they’re lying their way across Europe—dodging bullets and faking kisses as they race to unravel a deadly conspiracy and clear her sister’s name.

But with every secret they uncover, the truth shifts, until she no longer knows who to trust: the twin she can’t remember or the mysterious man she can’t let herself forget…

"Spies! Amnesia! And banter that’ll make you chant “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” No one writes an action rom-com quite like Ally Carter." – Rachel Hawkins, New York Times bestselling author of The Wife Upstairs

Rom-com meets spy novel in this frothy, delightful adventure

The James Bond movies of my teens and early twenties were the Roger Moore ones. They were fun and sexy and action-filled, and they never took themselves too seriously. They played up the humor in ways that didn’t match the tone of the original books or the earlier movies, but that was what I loved about them.* Get Smart (the movie) has a similar vibe.

And that’s the vibe I got from The Blonde Identity. It’s full of danger, chase scenes, and action sequences, but it’s also funny and sexy and frothy in all the right proportions. And it hits a bunch of tried-and-true romance and spy novel tropes—Grumpy-sunshine! Amnesia! Enemies-to-lovers! Only one bed! Fake relationship! Falling off a bridge/train/mountain! Everyone wants to kill you! Unusual ways to kill people!—in ways that somehow feel comfortingly familiar and fresh at the same time.

The heroine may have forgotten who she is, but she still knows how to crack a joke or make light of a dangerous situation. And she’s game; even concussed and half frozen, she doesn’t give up, whether that means taking a literal leap into the unknown or improvising about a fake marriage. What she knows about the dark world of espionage is obviously drawn from romantic thrillers and spy movies. And it’s clear that in her forgotten life, she was a romance reader, because she knows all the romantic tropes and keeps trying to apply them to the crazy-scary world she finds herself in. It’s a clever bit of characterization, because it tells you a lot about the kind of person she is—hopeful, sunny, brave, and determined to make sense of things using the only rules she can remember, in a world where she is out of her depth and her very identity is a mystery. For all the banter and clever escapes, the heroine is in real danger, and she knows it; her refusal to allow her fears to overcome her is admirable.

Sawyer certainly finds it so. A hardened undercover agent, he is alternately baffled, frustrated, and impressed by the woman he initially mistook for her twin Alex—his one-time partner, who has gone rogue. Something about the combination of the heroine’s innocence, her optimism, and her courage gets under his skin. He’s determined to protect her—and the fact that he finds her distractingly attractive is a complication he can’t afford. She continually takes him by surprise with a quip or question or impulsive move; sometimes her ideas, unorthodox as they appear to his highly-trained, experienced spycraft, work unexpectedly well.

I loved seeing the trust build between them (despite some notable mistakes on Sawyer’s part). I loved seeing the heroine become more and more resourceful and proactive. And I loved watching Sawyer fall completely in love with this fragile but strong, naïve but smart, utterly irresistible young woman who is so unlike anyone from his current life, and so perfect for him.

Carter expertly balances the romance, the suspense, and the humor, keeping me invested in the characters and their relationship whilst simultaneously turning the (virtual) pages as fast as I could to see what disaster would befall them next, and how cleverly they would get out of it. It’s an exuberant romp of a book, perfect for vacation reading—or briefly escaping the hellhole that is the news these days.

I can’t wait to read the sequel!

*Yes, the Roger Moore Bond movies were also sexist and occasionally problematic in other ways, but they were a product of their time. As, I suppose, was I… though I was raised by and as a feminist, so even then, I knew the movies were sexist. But they sure were fun.

Challenges: COYER 2025: Out to Lunch; Library Love Challenge 2025