OK but a bit dull. These are starting to feel a bit same-y now. I enjoyed the earlier ones but I think I've had enough now.

This is such a great adventure story, really well paced and well written and I really loved the characters!

I enjoyed this story, the characters were written well and as was the relationships between them. The storyline was a little slow at times which meant I had to keep coming back to it but overall I enjoyed it. I will be recommending this for my 9 year old child to read.

I completely lost myself in this intriguing tale of Lil and Sophie and their spy exploits in Russia.

Having first met them a few years ago at Sinclair’s Department store, I was so pleased to see more of their adventures published and their move into Taylor and Rose. I am sad to admit this is my first visit back to the girls since The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow but I will be visiting my library to catch up on all their adventures missed.

The great thing about a series is that there are hints of their past adventures throughout and I knew I had missed things but it didn’t impact my enjoyment of the story.

Lil and Sophie both find themselves in St Petersburg in this adventure and they must learn who can be trusted, how much they can reveal about themselves and how events are interlinked with past mysteries,

The two spies are marvellous characters, full of bravery, determination and a true sense of justice. They are on dangerous missions and you do feel a true sense of mystery and mayhem but they are both so confident and sure of themselves. Somehow you just know they will figure it all out.

This book ends on a cliffhanger and I must admit I am hooked! What will happen to Taylor and Rose once the girls arrive back in London?
I can’t wait for more!

Now off to the library to request more Katherine Woodfine!

This sequel picked straight up from Peril in Paris and it did not stop! Woodfine is such a great writer and she makes the characters seem 3d so easily. I really love following Lil and Sophie and enjoy that their adventures are badass but they still have an element of sweetness and tenderness about them. I need the next book in the series ASAP because of that ending!

This is the second book in the Taylor and Rose Secret Agents series and continues pretty much from where Peril in Paris ended.

The action throughout the majority of the story is split between Sophie who is posing as Alice Grayson, living undercover in St Petersburg and continuing to track Count Rudolf Von Wilderstein and his mysterious notebook, and Lil who is determined to track down her friend partner after overhearing that she has gone incommunicado.

There is so much to love in this thrilling and pacy MG spy novel. As always the two heroines, Sophie and Lil, have to use all their ingenuity and bravery to outwit any foe who stands in their way. Sophie takes on employment at a bespoke jewellery maker situated on the grandest street in St Petersburg to pursue her target and encounters a fanatical, revolver-wielding, student revolutionary leader who has uncovered some of her secrets. Lil needs to overcome the objections of her dutiful fellow agent in order to divert from their planned mission in Germany and search for Sophie in Russia. The story gallops along with fascinating evocations of the grandeur of pre-revolutionary St Petersburg with its opulent streets and birthday-cake palaces, the Circus of Marvels, the intrigues taking place in London at the Secret Service Bureau and lurking in the shadows, the sinister Fraternitas Draconum and their ongoing machinations to cause chaos in Europe.

This story crackles with interesting historical insights into the bubbling unrest in Europe of 1911 as well as the changing role of females at that time. The two main protagonists prove that they are far from the helpless young ladies that some other members of the spy service mistakenly believe them to be and the Circus of Marvels provides impressive female characters. Katherine Woodfine has once again penned an entertaining novel, with charm and adventure in abundance; a thoroughly enjoyable story for anyone of 9+.

My thanks to Netgalley for providing me with an electronic version of this book to review, I shall certainly want to buy a paperback copy for the school library as soon as possible.

This review has appeared on my own blog:
https://vsviewfromthebookshelves.home.blog/2019/04/22/review-spies-in-st-petersburg-by-katherine-woofine/

It's always a joy to travel along with Sophie, Lil and the gang and this time we're in Imperial Russia for an exciting, espionage adventure. Building on the events of the first book in the Taylor & Rose series, we find out more about about characters from that story and also learn a little more about the dangerous and mysterious Fraternitas Draconum.
It's a pacy adventure that will leave you wanting more, can't wait to find out where book 3 will take us.