July 2013, Simon and
Schuster, 312 pages, Paperback, Review copy
Themes: life as a spy, lots of
aliases, wanting to be like everyone else, coping with being radically
different to others, parental expectations, lack of clear boundaries, being put
in situations and expected to cope when you haven't had as much experience as
most in the job have, trying to blend in at high school, a crazy & lovable
best friend, doorman of few words, life for the rich, not knowing who you
really are, getting too involved in a job, being protected, being treated like
a child, breaking lots of rules, breaking and entering, doing all you can to
make your dreams come true
Content: some major peril,
occassional bad language (mostly not fully stated), teen love angst, pretty
sedate teen romance, a tissue is needed
Summary from Simon and Schuster
Believe it or not, there are some drawbacks to being a
16-year old safecracker, daughter of spies, and member of an organization that
fights corruption and wrongdoing around the world. For example: never getting
to stay in one place long enough to have friends or a boyfriend, being the only
spy ever to have a 10 p.m. curfew, and being sent on assignment to Russia. In
the winter.
For Maggie Silver, the compensation for the vast inconvenience of being a teenage spy has been avoiding high school and its accompanying cliques, bad lunches, and frustratingly simple security on the lockers. (If it's three digits or less, why even bother?) But when Maggie and her parents are sent to New York on a major assignment, all of that changes. She'll need to attend a private school, avoid the temptation to hack the school's security system, and befriend the aggravatingly cute Jesse Oliver to gain the information she needs to crack the case, all while trying not to blow her cover.
For Maggie Silver, the compensation for the vast inconvenience of being a teenage spy has been avoiding high school and its accompanying cliques, bad lunches, and frustratingly simple security on the lockers. (If it's three digits or less, why even bother?) But when Maggie and her parents are sent to New York on a major assignment, all of that changes. She'll need to attend a private school, avoid the temptation to hack the school's security system, and befriend the aggravatingly cute Jesse Oliver to gain the information she needs to crack the case, all while trying not to blow her cover.
Believe
it or not, there are some drawbacks to being a 16-year old safecracker,
daughter of spies, and member of an organization that fights corruption
and wrongdoing around the world. For example: never getting to stay in
one place long enough to have friends or a boyfriend, being the only spy
ever to have a 10 p.m. curfew, and being sent on assignment to Russia.
In the winter.
For Maggie Silver, the compensation for the vast inconvenience of being a teenage spy has been avoiding high school and its accompanying cliques, bad lunches, and frustratingly simple security on the lockers. (If it's three digits or less, why even bother?) But when Maggie and her parents are sent to New York on a major assignment, all of that changes. She'll need to attend a private school, avoid the temptation to hack the school's security system, and befriend the aggravatingly cute Jesse Oliver to gain the information she needs to crack the case, all while trying not to blow her cover. - See more at: http://books.simonandschuster.co.uk/Spy-Society/Robin-Benway/9781471116742#sthash.yLbJwoO0.dpuf
For Maggie Silver, the compensation for the vast inconvenience of being a teenage spy has been avoiding high school and its accompanying cliques, bad lunches, and frustratingly simple security on the lockers. (If it's three digits or less, why even bother?) But when Maggie and her parents are sent to New York on a major assignment, all of that changes. She'll need to attend a private school, avoid the temptation to hack the school's security system, and befriend the aggravatingly cute Jesse Oliver to gain the information she needs to crack the case, all while trying not to blow her cover. - See more at: http://books.simonandschuster.co.uk/Spy-Society/Robin-Benway/9781471116742#sthash.yLbJwoO0.dpuf
Nayuleska's thoughts
Maggie embarks on her
toughest job, learning that keeping secrets becoming as necessary as breathing
and yet sometimes the only way to move forward (which seems to be her motto) is
to break the rules. Personally her parents expected a bit too much of her,
especially in the beginning. It took me time to warm to Maggie - when things started
going wrong with her parents I finally really liked her.. I adore Roux who
earns best friend of the year award for being completely nutty in a mostly good
way. The slow beginning coupled with the end which to me felt marginally
disjointed and too neat, with not quite enough of an impact at the final
showdown brings what is otherwise a captivating must-read.
You can find out more
on Robin's website.
Suggested read
If you like teen spies
you will love the spectacular spy series by Ally Carter which starts with I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have To Kill You (Young Adult, 10/10)
Guest Blog Post
 |
| Here's Robin! (Credit to Lovato Images) |
As part of the Spy Society blog tour Robin has kindly written a guest post about fighting crime in Young Adult fiction - I'll hand you over to Robin now!
When I decided to write about spies, safecracking, and other criminal
shenanigans, I thought it would be...well, not easy, but definitely not
difficult.
Famous last words.
The only
thing I knew about safecracking was that I could crack a Masterlock
(thanks, Google), but that wasn't exactly enough information to write a
300 page book. So I contacted several professional safecrackers, asking
if I could interview them about their jobs. I didn't want to know how
they cracked safes, per se, but I was curious about what they loved
about their job, what they hated, what made them nervous.
Not one person would talk to me.
It
turns out that safecrackers are quite secretive about their jobs. Who
knew? And while it made researching Maggie's job a bit more difficult,
it actually helped enhance her character. In SPY SOCIETY, Maggie
considers herself the best lock picker and safecracker in town, and if
there's someone better, she doesn't want to know about them. I also
turned to YouTube and watched videos of safecrackers doing their thing,
literally watching how their hands moved back and forth on the dial.
Anyone watching over my shoulder would have thought that I was
descending into a life of crime. (Occupational hazard of being a writer,
I guess.)
Another problem I encountered was all the
gadgetry that people associate with spies. We've all seen the movie
where the hero plugs the doohickey into the whatchamacallit and it
somehow lights up and discovers the safe's code. That looks great
onscreen, of course, but in books, it's a bit more complicated. I didn't
want to spend pages describing just how each little thing worked, so I
chose to make Maggie work on manual safes, the kinds with dials and
knobs instead of keypads. In my research, I discovered that those are
even harder to crack than electronic safes, so it all worked out.
At least, for now. Maggie still has a few safecracking adventures ahead of her!
I'm glad to hear that, Robin, as I've enjoyed her first one and I'm looking forward to her next one! Thank you for giving us an insight on the lengths you went to while researching this book. I totally agree that authors may sometimes give the wrong impression to outsiders with the topics they end up researching - including safecracking!
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