The Thief and the Traitor Bride by V.L. Bovalino Series: The Hand and the Heart #2
on September 29, 2026
Genres: fantasy, romantasy
Goodreads
Nore Gordon is a woman of many talents: she can speak a variety of languages, disguise herself in plain sight, and has made a name for herself as a successful wine merchant. But unbeknownst to those closest to her, it is all a front for Nore's true role as the favoured spy of the Lindle crown.
Tasked with infiltrating enemy lands in search of a powerful relic, Nore is forced to engage the services of a great thief. Unfortunately, the only person for the job is her estranged husband Caspian. Both Nore and Caspian bear the scars of the disastrous end of their marriage, but if they are to survive their deadly new assignment, they must pose as a happily married couple to avoid detection.
As danger closes in, Nore finds herself tangled in a web of lies and deceit-and though Caspian is at the centre of it all, she may not hate him as much as she once did. But Caspian has betrayed her before, and trust can be far more deadly than deception.
Take this with a grain of salt since I only made it to page 258. Could everything have changed from page 259 onwards? Sure, but as it stands I am severely disappointed in this book. I was sooo excited for it, after LOVING The Second Death of Locke, but somehow absolutely none of what I loved translated to the second book.
The characters felt so flat. We are repeatedly told Nore is a fantastic spy, Celestine’s favourite. The keyword here is told. Not once were we shown any of this. There was no espionage, so smart planning, no getting out of sticky situations. I could maybe understand if she was supposed to deal more in information, since she does have the wine business as coverage, but even that we aren’t really shown. I know more about how her actual business runs than any of the spy work. And she’s a spy! I understand a certain loyalty to Celestine, but how did she not question anything?!? How did she not look into literally anything going on around her?! Caspian was no better, he felt so lack lustre as a love interest.
Which brings me to the chemistry. What chemistry, you may be asking? I asked myself the same thing for the first half of the book. Again, we are told they used to have a steamy relationship until a betrayal. The lovers to enemies to lovers situation can be super steamy, there can be so much yearning and will they won’t they, but not one ounce of me cared whether they kissed or not. We spend so much time in Nore’s head getting the same repetitive conversation of how attractive he is but how much he betrayed her. I didn’t feel any of it. Spoiler: I think not finding out exactly the betrayal was until almost the end of the book was detrimental here. Especially since it didn’t really come across as anything big (I skimmed here, so open opportunity to tell me I’m wrong), the emotional weight of it just fell flat.
Even the atmosphere wasn’t as atmospheric to me. Locke had such a gritty feel to it that I absolutely adored. It was muddy, it was foggy, I felt like I was in the camp with Locke and Keir, or on the island, or wherever they were. Again, not once did I feel like I was with Nore. None of it seemed to matter.
Anyway, I’m sad that I have this much to rant about. I so wanted to love The Thief and the Traitor Bride. I will continue to read this series only because I really, really hope we return to the style of book #1.