I was pointed at Meredith Duran’s Written on Your Skin by way of a link posted to Smart Bitches Trashy Books, and I’ve got to say that I was pleased at the pointing. Certainly for most of this book, I was treated to some delightfully caustic chemistry between the heroine and hero. Our heroine Mina is a young woman of delicate beauty who has been unabashedly letting everyone think she’s an airhead to disguise the fact that she’s diabolically clever; our hero Phineas, an English nobleman and spy.

The book’s opening sequence, where Mina must save Phineas’ life, is great fun. It is however only a prologue for the main body of the action, which takes place a few years later, when Phin must come to Mina’s aid. For me as a reader, though, the mechanics of the plot that actually brought Mina and Phineas back together took a massive backseat to the dynamics of their relationship, and I don’t think I did those mechanics justice, since I kept skimming to look for new scenes of interaction between them. I shall have to re-read this one to go back and get the rest of the details I missed.

Overall though the book read pretty well for me, even accounting for the skimming. My only beef that I came away with was the feeling that the happy ending came a bit too abruptly. When I get back to re-reading this one, I’ll see if I maintain that opinion. For now, three stars.