I cannot sugarcoat it: This book made a giant splash, and I absolutely devoured it. I didn’t realize I’d also get some badass female characters written with City of Girls-like characterization. It seemed to have everything I was looking for: historical fiction, a Cold-War era timeline and World War II, and an intriguing plot.

I came across Our Woman in Moscow a few months ago in a Buzzfeed books newsletter discussing new novels that were sure to make a splash. So after Red Sparrow failed to live up to my impossibly high expectations, I figured I needed to draw back into a genre that rarely lets me down, so that I could get my Cold War fix. Usually, I lean toward war-related reads when perusing this genre, but - as you know - I’ve been slightly obsessed with learning about Russia and the Cold War lately. I’ll never be able to answer that question, but I can tell you that, when done right, historical fiction novels have me flying through them at lightning speed. Why is the best kind of reading criticized the most? That belongs to another genre that I also frequently defend and one that critics despise almost as much as chit lit: historical fiction. It doesn’t, however, quite take the top spot. You’d think with how often I defend it that I would also favor the genre against all others. I’ve started many a post about how strongly I feel about the importance and enjoyment of this genre. I spend a lot of time defending chick lit against negative high-brow bibliophiles.

Our woman in moscow