Lady Spy

Serving Magic, Book 4

De: Toni Cabell

Narrado por: Lisa Lynn Sandlin

A dark fay uprising. A dashing fay wizard. And a growing anti-magic movement. Are Mara’s blades sharp enough to cut through such a tangled web?

By day, Mara runs a clockwork toyshop. By night, she spies for the resistance. The last thing Mara needs is a ridiculously handsome fay to train in customer service and spy craft.

Arnesto is persistent, bedazzling, and a twelfth-level fay wizard. He also casts spells in all the wrong places, talks more than he listens, and manages to get himself arrested. Mara is giving the incompetent fay one more chance to prove himself.

When a fresh threat imperils both the human and fay realms, Mara and Arnesto must fight together. But are swords, magic, and a scrap of prophecy enough to save the kingdom?

If you love warring kingdoms, strong, sassy heroines, and slow-burn clean romance, discover Serving Magic, a complete epic romantic fantasy series for fans of Shari L. Tapscott, Kenley Davidson, and Melanie Cellier.

©2021 Toni Cabell (P)2025 Toni Cabell

Sweet swords and sorcery and saucy heroine novel

Lady Spy is an engaging story told with bravura by narrator Lisa Lynn Sandlin, perhaps the most Steampunk of the Serving Magic series. It is book 4, with a follow-on book called Lady Reaper, but of course can be read on its own without engaging the three previous novels. As one could imagine from the title, the heroine Mara is a spy and her cover is managing a clockwork toyshop. She winds up getting stuck with an incompetent fay as a helper and of course he becomes the love interest and a strong character. The two of them must fight together against a threat to both the human and fay realms. A great listen, and I was sorry to hear it end!

Awesome characters! Arnesto is the best.

My favorite character in this book is Arnesto! He is just so odd and peculiar he is hilarious. XD I really loved the scene where Marah is trying to describe to Arnesto how human clothes look so he can glamour himself to look normal XD. He just doesn’t get it! And every one of his attempts are more ridiculous and hilarious than the last. You can tell he’s never been around a single human in his life XD I also love the faes magic! It’s so cool. This is my first book by Toni Cabell, and most every author you find has a different take on what fae are like, so it was fascinating to see Toni’s version of fae. I also adore all the names! I really loved Ephraim’s ending. I don’t know why, but I feel it is the best ending that this character could have.
Negatives: I feel like this book ended too quickly. Like, there was a lot of story that could have been flushed out more but wasn’t.
Narration: Lisa did an amazing job narrating this book! I really enjoyed the listen.
Content:
Romance: Yes, there is kissing and holding
Magic:Yes
Cussing: No
Violence: Yes! People die and are injured regularly.

I have enjoyed getting to know the main characters of this book.

At first this book felt like it had a lot of characters to keep straight but as you start to understand the story the characters all work out. I really enjoyed the differences between the two main characters Mara and Arnesto. They compliment each other very well. I will be reading book 5. You definitely need to read the first three books before this one.

Make sure you have tissues handy!

Mara is such a strong character that has grown on me as the series has continued. I absolutely adore her now, even though I initially loathed her. I really loved watching her find herself more and find love. Life has not been easy for any of them, but Mara is especially struggling with the changes and loneliness but yet she tries to take it in stride and do her best to save her homeland. She also helps others to accept themselves, which is ironic when the issues they have are issues she initially teased her friends for. Who said people can't change?

Great listen! Good place to enter the series if you haven't read the previous books!

I was told I could start with this book since it had a different main character from the first series and was intrigued by the the "accidentally engaged to a fae" trope. I definately enjoyed it and will go back to read the other books. I didn't find anything confusingfor having read out of order, but there are some references to past events and a few spoilers. The worldbuilding is really cool, and I'm looking forward to learning more about it and catch up on events that I missed.

Arnesto and Mara are cute! The accidental engagement didn't happen as early as I expected in the story, so the dynamic wasn't quite what I thought it was going to be, but I still liked it a lot! There's a lot of plot that had nothing to do with the romance, so I think people who aren't big fans of romance would still enjoy this book.

The narrator did a fantastic job of bringing the story to life and drawing the listener into the world.