The Housewife Assassin's Handbook: The Housewife Assassin, Book 1 Audiobook – Unabridged

This must be my year for getting into romance books with lots of humor! I stumbled across this great find in a Fussy Librarian email. The book was free and I liked the synopsis, so I figured: why the hell not? I was not disappointed with the recommendation.

This book is filled with romance, suspense, humor, and satire. If you're more into "serious" romance--whatever the H that is anyway--then this may not be for you. BUT if you have even one iota of funny in you, then pick up this book and escape the stress of life for a while.

I like how Ms. Brown's writing just flows--which, as a writer, I know is hard work. She makes it easy on the reader to follow the story and get so into it that you're rooting for your favorite characters all the way. She also adds in some great suspense and twists and turns. Not to mention all the funny with the "mean moms" of the heroine's posh neighborhood community.

I don't want to say too much about book details because I'll be tempted to write some spoilers. Therefore, I'll end with this: if you need some romance and some funny in your life, along with exciting action, then go and grab a copy of this book TODAY--right NOW!

Not funny, not romantic, and not a mystery, but if you want a ridiculous plot with lots of sex and violence, this is for you

This was my 2nd reading of this book. I recently got book #2 in the series, so I opened this one up to refresh my memory. My plan was to just skim through it a little, but I started reading, and couldn't stop! I very rarely like reading books more than once, but this is looking like a series that I will read multiple times! It has a bit of everything! It's funny, dramatic, sexy, sad, exciting, serious, etc. like real life, only better! The only negative is that it really needs to be edited better. There are several clerical errors. That just goes to show how good the story is, because normally if there are a lot of editing issues in a book, it will put me off reading it, but this one was SO GOOD, I was easily able to ignore them!

suspense, satire, humor, assassins, widow, family-dynamics, action-adventure

What can a young widow with 3 children under 7 do to make money and (sort of) avenge her husband's murder? Become a government assassin. Crazy tongue-in-cheek series of adventures with each prefaced by a household tip. Gets a little hairy sometimes, but nice escapism.
The narrator performed quite well.

This book was mind numbing and inane. The funny parts were pathetic, and the romance segments bordered on the obscene.

Too racy ...and improbable story line. Not for the critical thinker, even as a light read.

I have a new favorite author in Josie Brown. I've read two in the series now and just love them. I never thought a paid assassin would be a favorite character, but this one definitely is. She is one hot mama and does her two jobs well. She is a widowed mother of three and a paid assassin for the ACME Corp. That's all I'll tell you. Be sure and read the prequel which explains in detail how she got where she is.

Books like this are why I wonder why male readers don't think female authors have content that they would find entertaining. Brown's hired gun plot is fun, sometimes aggravating, and filled with the wonderful twist of being from a mother's POV.

Now that I'm completely done with the book, here's my goodreads review:
This is the only Josie Brown book I've ever read (so far). To say I was surprised that it was a pro-feminist action story is an understatement. When I read through the first couple chapters, main character Donna was presented as a sexpot mercenary. Oh, but she's also a mother and pretty upper class in a posh lily white community. My early thoughts of thinking Donna was just another example of literature's "vapid, but sexy girl with gun" problem were debunked as I got further along into the plot.

Donna will do anything to protect her family even go so far as to pretend a total stranger is the father of her children that they don't remember. Carl's abandonment is paced out nicely where readers learn more information along with Donna. The memory of Carl is crushed as even more information comes out. All the while, Donna grows from hating his analog Jack to falling hard for him. The bigger problem for her was that her kids loved their "new" dad.

Brown takes Donna through every emotion realistically: sadness, stress, guilt, worry, jealousy, anger, feeling violated, and feeling betrayed then finally victorious.

The way Brown handles the issue of sexual consent is subtle, because Donna's actions are all about following through with her mission and protecting her kids. Consent, as a label, is never used. It's handled in a way that I could still see if someone wants trigger warnings, but the Donna's perseverance and her inner battle with her emotions is brilliantly handled and worth reading as a fine example of how to do this right.

Donna ends up naked or in her underwear a lot; the key here is the scenes make sense. I've read enough books by male authors that truly believe they're writing "kickass women," but there's never a reason for the women to be running through a hallway where a pipe bursts and their shirts get wet so they have to strip down. Others don't even say why; they just say, she came out of the office in her underwear. They don't even try. Brown should give them lessons.

As for the sex scenes, I tweeted and Instagrammed already that these are the best sex scenes I've ever read. No airy poetry and metaphors. "He's hard" and "he pulled my thong to the side" and very simple "I wanted him," I'm paraphrasing, but that's how Brown accomplishes setting the mood whether Donna was willing and able or whenever Donna wasn't sure what she wanted.

As for the minor characters and the community, yes it's upper class lily white. It does however present like real communities I've visited on the east coast and this is set in California which my mind pictures as only tall, thin, suntanned but Caucasian, and blonde. So I understand why Brown didn't diversify her cast (it's why Stepford scenarios are scary thrillers), but it would have been fine to break that mold since reality is that we live in a diverse world. It's possible the author does imagine her own characters more colorful, but without specifying, it's hard to say. Like the character "Nola" - that's not a name I've ever heard of except for "New Orleans" so maybe Nola is intended to be ethnic.

There's enough comedy sprinkled in between the emotional scenes and within the action to keep readers' minds from going too grim here. Brown writes the kind of feminist action plot that men should be reading, especially male authors, to cure that trope of "vapid sexy girl with gun."