Musings and Ramblings

The Housewife Assassin's Handbook


The Housewife Assassin, #1
Josie Brown


Genre: Romantic Suspense
Publisher: Signal Editorial
Narrator: Melissa Moran
Date of Publication: August 1, 2014
Abridged or Unabridged: Unabridged
Length of Production: 5 hrs and 59 mins

Every desperate housewife wants an alias. Donna Stone has one - and it happens to be government-sanctioned.

But Donna earned it the hard way: Her husband was killed the day she delivered their third child.

To avenge her husband's murder, Donna leads a secret life as an assassin.

But espionage makes for strange bedfellows, and brings new meaning to that old adage, "Honey, I'm home...."

At some point in time, I remember seeing the cover of this book and it peaking my interest. I honestly don't remember where or when, but it's familiar. And the title struck a cord with me, The Housewife Assassin. It just sounds intriguing, no? That's why when I saw it on Audiobook Jukebox I just knew I had to give it a chance and at only about 6 hours long, it went by very quickly.

Donna Stone is a housewife and mother. She has three children, lives in a very exclusive gated community in southern California, manages the house and her kids very busy lives. Maybe not as well as some of the other Mommies in the carpool, but then again, they don't have to worry about clean up after torturing information out of an arms dealer and trying to make it on time to pick up the kids from after school. Yes, Donna is a covert agent for ACME, a government sanctioned agency that handles black ops. She became an agent after finding out that her husband was an agent and was killed while she was in the hospital giving birth to their third child. After a couple of months, his boss had to give her the bad news that his paychecks and benefits were going to stop. After she shot an attempted intruder, she was offered a job. That was 5 years earlier. Donna has now become quite the assassin with 40+ kills to her credit, each one a step in the direction of taking down the rogue group that killed her beloved husband and took away the father of her children.

Believe it or not, this was a light hearted, almost slapstick thriller. Were there tense moments and scintillating action? You bet. But it was told with quick quips and sarcastic humor and kept mostly PG-13. Think of movies like Killers, This Means War or even The Spy Next Door. There were some dark moments, especially towards the end, but overall I spent more time giggling than shocked or dismayed.

Melissa Moran did a great job bringing the characters to life. The tone and inflection were spot on. I especially loved the Stepford-esque quality she gave to the Perfect Housewife Advice at the beginning of most of the chapters. The had me snorting and cackling with the over the top tips and tricks to keeping your household running smoothly while eliminating your enemies.

Overall, this was quite an enjoyable read. There were enough twists to keep me interested, and some interesting 180's that I never saw coming. The story left me satisfied, but wanting more, so 4 stars.