His Quiet Agent (The Agency, #1)

130 pages

Published Jan. 4, 2017

Arthur Drams works for a secret government security agency, but all he really does is spend his days in a cubicle writing reports no one reads. After getting another “lateral promotion” by a supervisor who barely remembers his name, it’s suggested that Arthur try to ‘make friends’ and ‘get noticed’ in order to move up the ladder. It’s like high school all over again: his attempts to be friendly come across as awkward and creepy, and no one wants to sit at the same table with him at lunch. In a last-ditch attempt to be seen as friendly and outgoing, he decides to make friends with The Alien, aka Agent Martin Grove, known for his strange eating habits, unusual reading choices, and the fact that no one has spoken to him in three years.

Starting with a short, surprisingly interesting conversation on sociology books, Arthur slowly begins to chip …

Arthur Drams works for a secret government security agency, but all he really does is spend his days in a cubicle writing reports no one reads. After getting another “lateral promotion” by a supervisor who barely remembers his name, it’s suggested that Arthur try to ‘make friends’ and ‘get noticed’ in order to move up the ladder. It’s like high school all over again: his attempts to be friendly come across as awkward and creepy, and no one wants to sit at the same table with him at lunch. In a last-ditch attempt to be seen as friendly and outgoing, he decides to make friends with The Alien, aka Agent Martin Grove, known for his strange eating habits, unusual reading choices, and the fact that no one has spoken to him in three years.

Starting with a short, surprisingly interesting conversation on sociology books, Arthur slowly begins to chip away at The Alien’s walls using home-cooked meals to lure the secretive agent out of his abrasive shell. Except Martin just might be something closer to an actual secret agent than paper-pusher Arthur is, and it might be more than hearts at risk when something more than friendship begins to develop.

Please note this book has a Heat Rating of zero.

1 edition

WardenRed reviewed His Quiet Agent (The Agency, #1) by Ada Maria Soto

None

5 stars

Martin let him see the cracks that night and the smallest hint of what lay beyond. He wanted to know what was truly beneath those cracks but also knew he would fight anyone who tried to break Martin open. For that feeling, he knew of no words.

I'm always so, so here for ace romance, and this is such a beautiful, thoughtful example for it. It contains so many of my favorite tropes: Slow burn! Hurt/comfort! Win their heart by cooking for them! At one point in the story, there's even Only One Bed—and it has absolutely, completely, wholly nothing to do with sex and everything to do with trust. I'd say that trust is the key theme in this story, and I loved watching it gradually unfold between these two complicated, closed-off men. This book is very much an office romance, but the office is a secret agency, …

Martin let him see the cracks that night and the smallest hint of what lay beyond. He wanted to know what was truly beneath those cracks but also knew he would fight anyone who tried to break Martin open. For that feeling, he knew of no words.

I'm always so, so here for ace romance, and this is such a beautiful, thoughtful example for it. It contains so many of my favorite tropes: Slow burn! Hurt/comfort! Win their heart by cooking for them! At one point in the story, there's even Only One Bed—and it has absolutely, completely, wholly nothing to do with sex and everything to do with trust. I'd say that trust is the key theme in this story, and I loved watching it gradually unfold between these two complicated, closed-off men. This book is very much an office romance, but the office is a secret agency, and that fits these two characters and their relationship so well, creating the perfect opportunities for more secrets and silence to work through.

I really liked the supporting cast, too: Arthur's friend Carol, the nameless agents reacting to the one-sided conversation they had to eavesdrop on, the Shipper on Deck!librarian, the exasperated doctor, Arthur's complicated family, his mom's best friend. I liked the flow of the story and the prose, although to be fair I do feel there were parts that could have benefitted from an extra editing pass.

The one thing that prevents me from giving this book a solid five-star rating is that it feels somehow... incomplete? Not entirely resolved? It's not its fairly short length; it's just that I feel like there's so much I still don't know about these two characters, no matter how much I've grown to love them. Martin especially, but Arthur, too, even though as the narrator he sure opens up a lot more to the reader. I really, really want to read a sequel, but googling shows that so far it only exists in the form of a 4K-words-long short story that hardly has the space to reveal a lot more than the novel already has. I still really want to read it, though, because Martin's POV? And more library kids? And, once again, Martin's POV? Yes please!

earnest ma

rated it

Jan. 5, 2022

His Quiet Agent (The Agency, #1)

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