I have to preface this review with the fact that I am not a mother, nor do I currently have any plans to have kids in the foreseeable future, it's not something I find myself wanting. And this book was certainly not written with me in mind. I don't mean that in a bad way, and you can't argue that you don't know what you're getting yourself in for from the beginning, but I do think that there are other people who would get more out of this book than I would. 

This book is fun, that was my biggest takeaway. It doesn't shy away from the violence and the danger but it is fun at the core. It's so silly at times that you have to laugh out loud, the moment we got onto bulletproof pram covers I got the sense of what this book was trying to do. Conceptually, I think it's a clever idea for a story and, while it definitely goes to the extreme, it knows what it's doing. 

But if you are the kind of person who inhabits that 'mum' world, I can only assume that this will resonate even more powerfully with you. Either you'll relate to the Cath Kidston references or you'll read it as an amusing caricature of parenthood. I don't doubt that there were a lot of 'in-jokes' that I missed, I'm sure someone else would be able to find them.

I did have a good time reading this, I thought that the pacing was right, there was just the right balance between action and downtime. The plot itself had that 'plausible but still ridiculous' feel of old spy novels, there are twists and turns aplenty. This is a book to be read on the go, you can see it clutched on buses, planes, trains etc. 

Should you read this? If it seems like something you would find fun then I say go for it, you'll certainly find it entertaining! 

My rating: 3/5 stars

I received a free digital review copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Really good fun. Its had great reveiws but i wasn't sure i would like it (funny/ sassy chick lit is not my thing) but in fact it was really readable and engaging, and a clever spin on the idea of working mothers - even when the work is government assassin

Lex is returning to work from her maternity leave. Except her work is not what you or I would call 'normal'. She is a secret agent in Her Majesty’s service. She is a trained assassin and she loves her job. But being a mum suddenly throws a spanner into the works. Can she still be as efficient and ruthless as she used to be now that she has a baby at home to think about?

This was a very enjoyable escapist read, particularly for me as a new mum. I would chuckle to myself at all the baby related moments, full of understanding.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for sending me an e-copy in exchange for an honest and impartial review.

This is an utterly brilliant book. It is unique, witty, well-written and thoroughly engrossing. The blurb makes the book sound a little bit flippant, but it is anything but. Well worth the read, and an author to follow. I can't wait to see what Asia Mackay writes next.

I'll be honest I clicked on the link for this book in an email just wanting to find out more information of the book and didn't realise it would add the book to my shelf. Last week I noticed some of my newer books werent sending to my kindle like they should've but I managed to rectify that, however this one had already been archived so it was lost during that down time.

I've looked into the book and will consider purchasing it in the future! Thank you, and apologies for missing out.

Rated three stars to reflect that it sounds good as I didn't want to just rate it low because I didn't manage to read it.

found the story line amusing, the characters are described in such a way you feel you know them, loved the plot it really gathers pace towards the end, puts a different twist on assassins in a good way definitely enjoyed my time with this book

A woman struggles to combine her day job as an assassin with her new role as a mum. Light, easy read that's fast-paced and fun.

Thanks to NetGalley and to Bonnier Zaffre for an advance copy of Killing It, the debut novel by Asia Mackay.
Meet Lex Tyler, licensed to kill and the new James Bond. But this special agent is different in that she's also a new mother returning to work for the first time.
I loved this first novel from Asia Mackay. I found it refreshingly different and couldn't put it down - until the last chapter, which dragged on a bit and, in my opinion, could have finished several pages earlier. BUT ... the rest of it was fantastic and more than made up for the slow ending. I loved the setting. I loved the characters. And I loved the great writing.
What I particularly liked was the way Mackay described a procedure, giving it its own terminology, and then later in the book, she used that terminology without repeating the explanation - I already knew what it was. I thought that was very good writing.
Aside from a few typographical errors (mostly lower case letters for proper names), and the unnecessary detail at the end, there was nothing I didn't like.
If you like your special agents and enjoy a little OTT entertainment, then read this book. I'm already looking forward to the next one in the series.

Killing It is both a new to me genre and not quite that new, at the same time. Weird? Yes, but let me explain. The spy novel bit? Completely new to me. I've never read stuff like that! But the thing is, Killing It doesn't concentrate solely on the spy bit. It's also about being a woman, being a mother and how it all works out in society and your workplace. Which is something of a comfortable topic for me in books. Killing It was an interesting take on this problem, an unorthodox one for sure!

It's about...

Lex has a pretty unusual job – although it's a dangerous one. She works in her Majesty's Secret Service. And no, it's not a desk job. Despite all you might imagine about secret agents though... Lex just got married and had a baby. Which sets her apart from the stereotype for sure. Now she's at the end maternity leave and about to let the entire department find out whether motherhood is reconcillable with kicking butt. Hint? Of course it is. But it's also not going to be easy to prove it. Because suddenly everyone thinks that having a baby means your brains have been removed and replaced with jello... or something of the like. And it's up to Lex to prove to them that she's still just as capable. Even though she really shouldn't have to.

There's The Mystery Aspect And The Super Mommy
I suppose this is probably part of any spy novel – it wouldn't be one if there wasn't something backwards going on, and the main character needed to get to the bottom of it. In Lex's case, not all of her workmates are happy to have her back, particularly because she works in almost a purely male environment. Despite being fresh off her maternity leave, she is instantly put on a huge and important mission, which is fishy on its own. Things don't really add up between the intel and what she's picking up herself, but Lex tries her best – all the while balancing being a mother and being an employee.

There's More Than Just That Though
Secondary characters play a big role in the story. Since you've got to unravel the mystery along with Lex, you will have to see her meet a lot of quite characteristic people. In the current political climate, I guess the adversaries had to be Russian (although I did roll my eyes at that. They're always Russian, aren't they?), so it's mainly Russian millionaire wives in London. Which prove to be an interesting crowd to read about, and they're more than just their appearances. Despite working with just guys, Lex deals mostly with other women in the book – she even has to take her baby along with her for cover. So she's both infiltrating their circles for the mission, and also navigating the new world of having 'super mummy buddies'. It's an interesting mesh.

What Should You Expect From Killing It?
When I went into this book, I expected plain old good fun. Chances are, I wouldn't have gone for a spy novel at all, otherwise! But I actually got more than I expected – Killing It does dig deep at the end, even though it starts out lighthearted. Yes, it will be funny in places, and the main character will end up in silly situations, but that's not the point. Neither is the mystery that you'll end up trying to figure out. The point is to shine a light on the situation of many women in the workforce – on how they're scrutinized when they come back to work after having a baby, on how they're suddenly treated as if they're fundamentally different than they were, and how all of that somehow doesn't apply to men. This phenomenon is dissected in great detail in the book, and is looked at from many angles. I liked the views that were presented – on one hand, it's undoubtedly infuriating that a woman would have to prove herself anymore than a man, after a change in her family. On the other hand, while women can still perform just as well, if not better, in stressful situations after they've had a baby, they are usually the parent that has a closer tie to the child, and spends more time with them (which means, loses more time resting or sleeping), and in the end, might be willing to risk more of their health or wellbeing to protect the child – which has to be true about a lot of women and the way motherfood is more physical than fatherhood purely for biological reasons. I liked the ideas discussed in this book in regards to this, and while it's not part of my personal experience, so my understanding is limited, I'm sure it has a lot of bearing.

But Beware Of The Triggers
Well, this is a spy book – graphic violence, strangely, doesn't happen all that much, but it is talked about quite a lot. The main character enjoys the thrill of killing, provided it's a bad person. I think that's about it!

I thank Bonnier Zaffre for giving me a free copy of the book in exchange to my honest opinion. Receiving the book for free does not affect my opinion.

Loved this book. Fast paced with twists and turns with a dollop of comedy. Would happily read a sequel our anything else by this author.

I have loved this book! Funny, witty and relatable, I didn't want to put it off.
Juggling being a mother and a job can be challenging, imagine how can it be when your day-job is being a killer! I just hope that this becomes a series and I can enjoy more missions with Lex.

A fairly entertaining novel, although it didn’t keep me enthralled.

I couldn’t decide if ultimately, the whole spy organisation was believable or not; some aspects felt far-fetched, where I had expected something more on the… ‘realistic’ side? Not that I know much about actual MI6 operations are conducted, that is: it was more a feeling than anything truly objective. Some parts I found amusing and inventive, in a sort of parodic way that I could only envision in a novel or a game (such as conducting interrogations in disused Tube parts, so that nobody would hear the cries over the din of trains or wonder about ‘that drunk, stumbling friend I’m dragging with me at 1 am is absolutely not a suspect I’ve just finished torturing’). I’d say this works if you’re looking for the kind of caricatural spy network, and works probably less well otherwise. As far as I’m concerned, I’m on the fence with it.

As a result, the plot was a little unconvincing, and I couldn’t really connect with Lex as a character: I liked her snarky comments in general, but found it difficult to reconcile her callous take on offing and torturing people with the double standard of ‘I do it on a regular basis to other people, but no one dare touch my daughter’. While wanting to protect one’s family is totally normal, there’s an underlying hypocrisy here that doesn’t sit too well with me, probably because I usually have a strong reaction to ‘do what I say, not as I do’ people.

On the other hand, the novel raises interesting, if not unexpected points about age-old attitudes in the workplace regarding women, and especially mothers. In that, ‘Killing It’ is close to a lot of things we can still see nowadays, where in spit of feminist progress and workplaces generally opening up, a woman’s position is still subjected to ‘having to prove herself twice as much as the men’. (There’s been a lot of progress IRL, and I sure won’t deny this, but I’ve been in enough interviews with barely concealed sexist questions to know that the way to full equality is still long.) Basically, Lex’s struggle with coming back to work after her maternity leave felt real and relevant: some of her colleagues, and especially her boss, kept on questioning her ability to do her job and not ‘giving in to hormones’ and all manners of crap arguments. Here, too, some things were caricatural and laid out too heavily (like Bennie’s attempts at putting Lex down)—and, of course, Lex’s job is not just any office job, and is much more dangerous—but it doesn’t change the fact that many people (other women included) still assume too often that as soon as one becomes a mother, one becomes ‘weaker/less smart/less able/whatever’ and have to prove herself all over again… while nobody bats an eyelid at a man becoming a father.

Conclusion: The humour didn’t always work for me, and some things were definitely hammered in too much. Still, as a light novel that doesn’t demand too much focus, it worked.

Mum is an assassin for the Secret Service. She has to come up with cover stories galore. Done before in comics and films so nothing new. A few humorous parts. Too much information, not enough action.

I love getting NetGalley marketing emails and seeing what new books are available but I’m very rarely tempted to click through and hit that request button. However, as soon as I saw the cover and premise of Killing It I knew that it would make it straight to the top of my TBR!

Going back to work is a challenge for any new mum, but it’s a whole lot tougher if you happen to be a Government Secret Service Assassin. The misogyny was hard enough for Lex Tyler to deal with before she got pregnant but now she’s a mother it’s gone to a whole new level. Despite being an expert with years of experience she’s forced to prove her worth all over again, taking the lead on a mission against powerful enemies with the whole world’s privacy on the line. As if that wasn’t enough she must deal with mum guilt, rice cake on her gun barrel and first and foremost keeping her daughter safe. She’s determined to be the mum who has it all, but can she pull it off, and if so at what cost?

The first thing to say is that I expected this book to be a whole lot of fun and it absolutely was! Any mums of little ones should read it just to indulge in imagining themselves as a spy super mum! No other book combines dangerous secret agent work with the reality of mum guilt, making it unique, interesting and much more down to earth than your average spy novel. However, the insertion so many mundane parenting worries means that the pace is slow. Asia tries to counteract this by regaling the reader with pre-baby spy missions but they don’t produce the desired thrill because we know that Lex is no longer in danger. There’s not enough action and jeopardy for me until the end, when the pace picks up and it gets much better.

I could tell that the author’s focus was more on making it fun rather than super realistic. Maybe I’ve read too many Alex Rider novels, but I was surprised that there’s a whole scene based on the fact that none of Lex’s team know how to write in Russian. They’re spies and not one of them knows Russian? Really?! I also thought that the portrayal of the posh mums Lex has to work with and the sexism she endures was a bit over the top. That’s not to say that I don’t think it’s a genuine reflection of what she would experience, just that it got frustrating and less enjoyable to read at times.

Having said that, Lex is an absolutely brilliant character. She’s exactly what you’d expect from a young woman assassin: sassy, sharp, funny and just a bit messed up. I loved spending time with her.

I feel like this review has been more negative than positive, but I really did enjoy the book, and I will definitely be reading the sequel! If you want something easy, fun and different for the end of the summer then give Killing It a try.

7/10

Killing It was the first book I've read from this author and I really enjoyed it. Will definitely read more from this author.

I’ve had this book for ages and had no fancy for it as it’s not my usual read but I’m so pleased I took the plunge as I really enjoyed it. Loved Lex and it made me laugh several times as she tried to juggle motherhood and being an assassin. Loved the chemistry between her and Jake and I know this is so bad but I want them to get together! Can’t wait for the sequel which I am assuming we will get given the ending of this novel. Thanks to Zaffre, Netgalley and the author for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book. It was totally different from my usual reading materials. The storyline was amusing and the book kept me hooked to the last page. Highly recommended.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Asia Mackay for the copy of this book. I agreed to give my unbiased opinion voluntarily.

A fast-moving thriller with a difference.

Lex Tyler has just become a mother - but she is a new mother with a definite difference. She is also a killer, a dedicated assassin in her Majesty’s secret service. Her return to work, with all the usual worries of abandoning your baby for the first time, is not a normal one. She is tasked with a new mission, the target inevitably to take out a Russian. To do this Lex has to get close to the target’s wife, Dasha, a London ‘yummy mother’ with ambitions to be the yummiest of them all amidst London’s elite mother set.

The essence of the story is how Lex manages to pursue her dangerous task, while still juggling the endless worries of new motherhood. There are many twists and turns as the question is soon being asked, has she been betrayed by a colleague in Platform 8? Or is someone trying to show her that a mother with a small baby is no longer suitable to be an assassin?

This is a fun and exciting book to read with many amusing moments, such as her daughter Gigi being provided with a bulletproof pram cover. It all sounds authentic, and there is certainly a great deal of background knowledge of the assassin’s complex job. However, I did find certain drawbacks as I read. There was just a bit too much for me of Lex’s endless anxiety of risking her daughter being a motherless child. It must have been obvious from the moment she returned to work that this was a definite probability. I also found the husband almost boringly perfect and surely a trifle stupid? How could his wife, working in ‘Data’, get so many injuries and work such peculiarly long and erratic hours? He never seemed the slightest bit suspicious. Her side-kick Jake was far more exciting and romantic, but her solution to their relationship was not really believable.

Despite this Lex Tyler’s character shows great potential and could easily develop to rival James Bond.

Jane

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

This is a spy story with a difference, and a lot of humour as well. The premise of it shouldn’t work, but it does.

The storyline kept my attention throughout, whether it was to do with the spy part of the story, or the motherhood part.

This was an easy read and ideal for sitting down with on a summers day.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a copy.

Move over, James Bond, there’s a new agent in town who takes multi-tasking to a whole new level.

OMG, this book was unputdownable! The author killed it (*snorts* see what I did there?) in this epic fusion of humour and taut suspense.

I’ll tell you one thing - if I was in a situation where everything had gone t*ts up, there is no one I’d want more at my side than Lex. You better think twice before you mess with this Mama Bear.

Returning to work following maternity leave is tough enough for any woman, let alone when you work for a division of Her Majesty’s Secret Service that supposedly doesn’t exist. Sheesh, talk about pressure!

But no one is going to tell Lex she can’t do something. That word simply doesn’t exist in her vocabulary. This is her calling...

Lex hits the ground running with her first mission back, and she’s out to prove she’s more than capable of juggling both her motherhood and covert agent hats at the same time. Only, something isn’t sitting right and it ain’t her breast pads *snorts*

This book is unlike anything I have read so far this year. I laughed from the opening page, and just when the author ramped the tension up to unbearable levels, and I felt like I was on the edge of my seat, she interjected some much wanted humour to the proceedings.

I’ll never look at certain things the same again. Take Lex’s analogy of planning a hit, for example:

“It’s Sudoku for the sadistic.”

See what I mean, lol?

Totally original, totally relatable - trust me, you want to read this book. Go #TeamLex