The Housewife Assassin's Handbook (Housewife Assassin Series) Paperback – May 13, 2011

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."

At some point in time, I remember seeing the cover of this book and it peaking my interest. I honestly don't remember where or when, but it's familiar. And the title struck a cord with me, The Housewife Assassin. It just sounds intriguing, no? That's why when I saw it on Audiobook Jukebox I just knew I had to give it a chance and at only about 6 hours long, it went by very quickly.Donna Stone is a housewife and mother. She has three children, lives in a very exclusive gated community in southern California, manages the house and her kids very busy lives. Maybe not as well as some of the other Mommies in the carpool, but then again, they don't have to worry about clean up after torturing information out of an arms dealer and trying to make it on time to pick up the kids from after school. Yes, Donna is a covert agent for ACME, a government sanctioned agency that handles black ops. She became an agent after finding out that her husband was an agent and was killed while she was in the hospital giving birth to their third child. After a couple of months, his boss had to give her the bad news that his paychecks and benefits were going to stop. After she shot an attempted intruder, she was offered a job. That was 5 years earlier. Donna has now become quite the assassin with 40+ kills to her credit, each one a step in the direction of taking down the rogue group that killed her beloved husband and took away the father of her children.Believe it or not, this was a light hearted, almost slapstick thriller. Were there tense moments and scintillating action? You bet. But it was told with quick quips and sarcastic humor and kept mostly PG-13. Think of movies like Killers, This Means War or even The Spy Next Door. There were some dark moments, especially towards the end, but overall I spent more time giggling than shocked or dismayed.Melissa Moran did a great job bringing the characters to life. The tone and inflection were spot on. I especially loved the Stepford-esque quality she gave to the Perfect Housewife Advice at the beginning of most of the chapters. The had me snorting and cackling with the over the top tips and tricks to keeping your household running smoothly while eliminating your enemies.Overall, this was quite an enjoyable read. There were enough twists to keep me interested, and some interesting 180's that I never saw coming. The story left me satisfied, but wanting more, so 4 stars.