'Killing It' lives up to its name and manages to be entertaining while giving the reader a fast-paced thriller laced with satire and delivering a thought-provoking feminist message.

Lex is a successful woman in a predominately male world, nothing new there then, you may think, but she's a trained assassin working for a wholly deniable government organisation. After nearly a decade of killing for a living, she decides to risk a relationship and Gigi; a lovable baby is the outcome of this. Returning to work after maternity leave, she wonders if she's can still be the edgy killer she previously was, not helped by the less than helpful reactions of her male counterparts.

The plot is full of twists, excellent characters who are vividly depicted and soon bring the reader into the world of government endorsed assassins and London's Yummy Mummy set. At times it seems safer to hang out with the killers, at least their weapons aren't hidden.

Lex is always challenged in this book as she tries to be both a professional worker and consummate mother. Will she have to choose one or other or will the choice be made for her?

The final twists are well-executed and the ending realistic and satisfying.

If you enjoy a thriller that doesn't take itself too seriously but makes you think, this is the one.

I received a copy of this book from Bonnier Zaffre via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Good fun - romp about a secret service assassin returning to work after maternity leave. Neat set up and action well paced. Perfect to try if you enjoy Janet Evanovich style action, laughs and sparky dialogue. An author to watch out for.

A new age spy novel with Alexis Tyler a new mom returning to work at M16 just after her maternity leave. Lex is proving women can have it all balancing motherhood & being a British intelligence agent. She takes being a working mom to a whole diffrent level mixing motherhood into her missions along with some funny mom moments.

I received a free copy via Netgalley in exchange for a honest review.

A light thriller with great characters and a wonderful story.
This is a very easy read.

A good mix of spy story and women's fiction, with a lot of humour.
I liked this book as it's light and talks about important issue like work/life balance and what you have to face if you're a woman in a male only environment.
It's page turner, full of action and fun to read.
Recommended!
Many thanks to Bonnier Zaffre and Netgalley for this ARC

I received an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book brought back all the feelings I had after having my first child. Questioning how some mothers manage to adopt the flawless look when I had barely managed to brush my hair. How you can possibly manage to do a job, manage your home and care for your child.

All that is with me having a standard job. Lex the MC in this role is an elite covert agent who on her first day back at work is given the task of planning the assassination of a ruthless Russian businessman - nothing like phasing back in!

I loved how this plot developed with Lex feeling like she had to prove she is still able to do her job and prove she can still be a good mum.

Lex has to combine her role as parent and assassin to get close to the wife of the Russian taking her baby with her. I will never look at baby rattles in the same way again and I think bulletproof Pram rain covers could be a top seller soon.

The plot of this story was well developed with humour, deceit, action and betrayal being some of the threads. At 40% into the book I was able to predict some of what happened but this did not detract from the story for me.

I really enjoyed this book and will definitely look for more books from this author in the future.

#KillingIt #NetGalley

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this book

a woman james bond...had its funny moments but i found it couldnt hold my interest and was finding other things to read rather than carry on with this one....

i am sure others will enjoy it though

I just loved this book... so easily 5 stars from me, I could not put it down. If you want something fun, easy to read and enjoyable give this book a go.

Alexis Tyler is a new mum returning to work after giving birth to her daughter. That on its own has its fair share of obstacles and dramas. Imagine that you are a secret agent in Her Majesty's Secret Service and you are returning to work. Now not only is she female but also a mother.... in the boys club that is HMSS this is a big ask. But try telling Alexis thIs. A great story about a strong women who wants it all, and how she manages, and struggles to keep it all together. Her new role as a mother has its disadvantages but there are also plenty of advantages as well.

This is a funny book with strong messages that women can do anything that they put their minds to. I hope that there is a sequel.. I would love to see what happens next. Thanks to Bonnier Zaffre and NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book. All opinions are my own and are not influenced by others.

The opening line of book is what appealed to me and it did not disappoint. The format was hard to read sometimes but this may be due to device issues rather than the actual book. There were a couple of questions left unanswered but I hope this is to leave it open for a possible sequel which I will read as soon as I can, if I can. This was a great read, perfect holiday book and I thoroughly enjoyed it

I wasn't sure how this book would be, but I really enjoyed it so much. It's a unique idea, a new mother working as an assassin. It had a good blend of the comedy of the juxtaposition of the two ideas. I loved seeing her going from being the loving mother with her daughter and husband to spending the next day spying and breaking into places while planning an assassination.

It also convinced me that all spies and assassins should be women. We have far more things that we tend to carry around that can be turned into gadgets. From tampons to lipsticks, no one looks twice at a women carry that sort of thing. Despite the sexism that Alexis faced, she really proved that having a women, a mother, on the team is nothing more than a asset.

This book is a beautiful, feminist piece about a woman fighting tooth and nail to be recognised in her field after being on maternity leave. It's a powerful story with a suspenseful, funny and all round entertaining story of assassinations and covert ops on top. Definitely a story that's gonna stay with me.

Alexis ‘Lex’ Tyler is returning to work after maternity leave – a difficult prospect for any woman, but particularly for Lex. For she is a ‘Rat,’ a member of an elite section of the secret services, where she works as an assassin. After one mission where she thought she would die, her thoughts turned to the fact that she had never had a baby and now she has rectified that; with husband Will and baby daughter Gigi a part of her life that she keeps totally separate from her work. In all honesty, I found this part of the story a little hard to accept and Will seemed quite unquestioning about her job. Still, that aside, this was a really fun read.

I love spy novels but, with the exception of Mick Herron’s glorious Slough House series, good female characters are few and far between; especially as main characters. As a woman, and a mother, I really enjoyed a whole new take on this genre. Lex feels that she has to prove herself back at work, with many feeling she can no longer do her job – that she is not fit enough, not committed enough and that motherhood has, in some way, changed her. Which, of course it has. However, motherhood is going to be a bonus in her new mission – the assassination of a Russian in London, for reasons of national – indeed, world – security.

The author of this novel treads a fine line between creating a fast moving, undercover, covert operations story, while exploring Lex’s conflicted feelings as a mother. The mission involves Lex making contact with Dimitri Tupolev’s wife, Dasha and her daughter, Gigi, is the perfect cover story. This is a story of the mission, but it also intersects with the world of Russia’s elite and wealthy, of yummy mummies, unconditional love and the way that your world is never the same once you have a baby – who have a way of just coming into your life and changing everything. I hope this becomes a series and I look forward to reading on. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.

Few mothers returning to work after maternity leave will face quite the same dilemma as Lex. How to juggle being a full-time government assassin with being the mother of a baby girl, with a husband who is blissfully unaware of her real job, while trying to stay alive for her child when quite a lot of dangerous people want her dead.
This is a thoroughly enjoyable romp, much better than I expected, with a good plot and written with a wry sense of humour. Any London commuters who read it will never feel the same about delays on the underground.

What a pleasant surprise.

I really thought that this was going to be one of those chick lit books where a woman is doing some kind of job that really goes against the grain and she’s all “girl power, bitches!” whilst saving the world and not so much as chipping her Shellac. You know the kind – we’ve all read them.

This one is different. Honestly.

We have Lex, the main character who actually works for one of the lesser known security services in the UK as an operative and we meet her on her first day back after maternity leave.

Lex has a lot to prove. To her bosses, colleagues and of course to herself.

I really enjoyed this book and read it in one sitting. I can see this becoming a series that I would be only too happy to read as long as it doesn’t get any cornier.

Light, funny and a easy read for lazy days.

Tapping into every mother's guilt, this is a story of a working mother whose career naturally triggers a little more self-doubt and guilt than for most of us. While most are deskbound, our heroine is a government operative and sometime assassin, deliberately putting herself in situations of utmost danger, where one wrong move would mean she'd definitely miss the nursery pick-up, forever.

She's a woman with the same thoughts, worries and hopes of every mother who has to prove that she hasn't suddenly lost her ability to do her job, deliver the goods and be a fully functioning member of the team now that she's had a child. It's an age-old story that most women can relate to, given a fun twist.

It's a good story and has great potential for a whole series, I'd argue, but i really wish the author had resisted all the overly cheesy, Bond-esque, one liners. yes, they're clever, but they're overused here, like too much salt on a salted caramel pudding - the occasional one adds spritz, but dusted throughout just gets boring and annoying.

Killing It is the first novel by Asia Mackay and it is a book with a difference.

Yes it is a page turning spy thriller with lots of action but it is the first time that I have read a spy thriller combined with a parenting book.

And yes it does work.

The story is strong enough to keep you hooked and the humour, mainly from the problems of being a mother as well as a killer, works well.

The story moves along at a pace to keep the pages turning and the writing is strong. There are a number of twists and turns to the story

There are a number of main characters but all are described well and their characteristics easily identifiable

So overall an excellent debut novel that is thoroughly recommended

I found this pretty easy to get into. At first I was interested and didn't want to stop, but when I stopped for the day and tried picking it up the next day I struggled.
I just didn't get much from this at all. I ended up skim reading a lot of it.

I liked this! It was super fun and the plot was great. Think feminist revision of the Kingsman movies, or even Melissa McCarthy in Spy. Alexis "Lex" Tyler is a spy working for the secret service. But she's also newly experiencing motherhood. It's a quirky mixture of the two messy livelihoods combined into one - full of comedic moment as well as heartfelt ones, the perfect balance. Definitely more New Adult than YA or Adult. Really enjoyed this!

"Plan a hit, stalk a target, pull the trigger and still make it home for bath time."

A hit-(wo)man thriller with a unique spin - the top assassin is a mum. This wouldn't have worked if the protagonist didn't feel like a REAL mum. And I'm certainly one who knew what to look for. Killing It gets my seal of Mum-proval.

Thrillers, hits, political assassinations are a 'dime a dozen'. To make your mark, you really need to stand out as offering readers more 'bang for their buck' (those two money metaphors weren't planned). To feature a new mum as a successful intelligence agent is going to appeal to a variety of markets, but you have to get it right - and balance the thrills and kills with the mobiles and (milk) spills.

Lex proves an audacious leading lady. Her very real mothering issues (leaky breast pads, leaving her daughter with childcare) mesh nicely with the world of the spy. Her capabilities and comfort with weapons and coldly dispatching targets doesn't mean she is any less vulnerable as a woman trying to do the best for her daughter and holding a marriage together.

She's also wonderfully funny:
"Nothing could make a man recoil faster than the words 'heavy flow'."

The best moments of the book show the vulnerabilities of a woman who has done what so many of us have - given birth, chosen to devote ourselves to another, smaller version of ourselves - and left ourselves forever changed as a result. With Lex though, there is added humour and a dangerous dimension to it simultaneously:
"Is baby brain going to affect my aim?... Is the extra baby weight going to be an operational issue?"

There are some great scenes, with guns stuffed into nappy bags, innovative monitoring systems to watch over baby Gigi, as a plot involving Russians brings Lex's newly-found persona and guise into top secret operations.

Some great secondary characters (though I wanted more of Lex's oh-so-normal husband!), a cute baby I could picture (and through the thousands of photos on Lex's phone - almost could), and a very enjoyable thriller plot that didn't feel obvious or too secondary to Lex's home life and mental world.

As a mother, I felt a strong affinity for Lex, her clear love for Gigi very real and well-expressed. To see such a woman in a position was vicariously pleasurable and I loved the 'insight' into the world of the spy, realistic or not.

I would love to read more of Lex's exploits, and would hope that filmmakers take note of Mackay's work and see if a screenplay could be created to bring this to a film audience.

With thanks to Netgalley for the advance e-copy.

This book came to me at the right time. I was in need of something light to read at bedtime, which would make me chortle, and I really enjoyed the way the author kept sending up and pastiching James Bond, such as the underground lair seen in Skyfall etc. I enjoyed the story - thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the early read.

Was an enjoyable read, a new twist on the spy thriller, funny and lighthearted combination of spying and parenting