I just finished Red Sparrow: A Novel (The Red Sparrow Trilogy) thanks to a recommendation from a friend, and wow was it a great read!!

This book, published in 2013, is currently a movie getting lackluster reviews. My advice would be skip the movie and read this book instead.

Dominika, a young and talented Russian intelligence officer is, against her own wishes, sent to “Sparrow School” to learn “sexpionage” and then assigned to operate against a CIA agent, Nate Nash, to find out the identity of Nash’s mole inside the Russian government.  Nate and Dominika being working each other,  and eventually one of them betrays their country to work for the other.  What follows is truly delightful and terrifying and is apparently realistic because the author, Jason Matthews, is retired from the CIA.

Just wow – I couldn’t get enough of this book, and am excited to read the other two:  Palace of Treason: A Novel (The Red Sparrow Trilogy) and The Kremlin’s Candidate: A Novel (The Red Sparrow Trilogy).

The other thing I have to mention about this book is that after each chapter and whatever shocking, sexual, or riveting plot twist just happened, there is a recipe. Yes a recipe – for something that one of the characters had eaten in the past chapter. I found it funny at first, and then I got used to this technique (I just don’t even know what to call this odd insertion!!) and even started predicting to myself what the recipe would be while reading a chapter. I do plan to try a couple of these recipes although most had at least one ingredient or step of instruction outside of my comfort zone.

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