I had high hopes I would enjoy this book! This is the second book I have read from this author. And the fact Calico thunder rides again did so well in last year's SPFBO contest meant readers would naturally have high expectations. The first chapter of Secrets of PEACE is quite good, but that isn't enough to support an otherwise flaky book.

It seems like Secrets of PEACE takes place 70 years in the future where parts of the US is a dystopic landscape after a brutal war. Asian countries have become members of a large country called the Asian Federation with a very soviet style iron curtain that doesn't allow foreigners to visit. There is some modern technology such as an override system for digital IDs and self driving cars. Otherwise, the first 20% of the story reminds me of the first Divergent book.

Hiding in the shadows is this mysterious government (?) organization called PEACE. I suppose they adopt orphaned children. Like the Black Widow comic, they train these kids from a young age and shelter them from the rest of society. For unexplained reasons, these children are never taught foreign languages (not even super important languages for espionage and diplomacy like Mandarin), nor are they taught combat skills at a super young age like the children born in the Dauntless faction in Divergent. Only a small group of them start training in combat when they are around 14 years old. Even though spies need to improvise, most of them don't know how to drive ancient vehicles. Quite frankly, I really have no idea what skills they DO learn. Crochet, perhaps?

I didn't dislike the young female protagonist Zela who is part of the espionage faction in PEACE. The problem is that I never got to know her. She has a former roommate that share some banter every now and then when she visits HQ. But neither roomie have shared hobbies or anything even though they have known eachother their whole lives. I wouldn't demand to know if Zela has parents (probably not), but we never get to see her pondering or offer a glimpse of her favorite foods or anything. Her bursts of anger were fine, though. She is 18 years old, so her mental thoughts matched her age. But other than that, I never knew anything about her except she has short blond hair.

She ends up teaming up with a 20 something male veteran spy called Jared. I swear that Jared is like a carbon copy of Four from Divergent, but without the tattoos and the same strong motivation from a young age. Up to the 20% of the novel, we only know very few things about Jared. I can't really like him or hate him as a result.

The plot is okay enough. Zela and Jared want to stop a guy who is helping a terrorist mafia, but it seems all too simplistic. Is the asian federation planning something big? Is that little mafia group just peons? I will give the benefit of the doubt of the greater scheme of the book because I only reached 20% of the story. But team EPIC's group in particular in the SPSFC3 contest is surprisingly strong with books that have sucked me in a vortex in less than 10 pages.

In comparison, while this book is okay enough and might offer a entertaining story a bit later on, the lack of worldbuilding and excessive similarity with plenty of other similar books means this book has been unable to sufficiently stand out in a very crowded field. And so, it is a cut for me.

3.5
Book source ~ BBNYA

After a global war the PEACE Project was formed. Protect, Enforce, Advance, Control, and Eliminate are the rules to live by. Zira has been raised in the E-2 program and after she makes a rookie mistake the Chairman pairs her with Jared, a skilled operative who usually works alone. They get off to a rocky start, but things smooth out. Until Zira has a solo mission go tits up. Then her world falls apart.

This starts off a bit slow and it took me a little while to get all the specifics, but once I sorted everything out the world came into focus. Zira and Jared hit it off kind of fast for my liking, but it’s a stressful situation, so maybe it’s possible. The fact that they are in a relationship plays a big part at the end of the book though. The characters aren’t as fleshed out as I’d prefer, but maybe they grow over time. The plot is a common dystopian trope, but it’s executed decently. I’m curious to see how it plays out over the series. ( )

Such an enjoyable story. The scenario is that of a dystopian world where a major authority controls every aspect of society and, apparently, creates a happy place for everyone. We see this world through Zira's eyes, a petite girl who was raised as an assassin and who believes she is killing "the bad guys" thus keeping common people safe. As she takes on assignments and interacts with the world outside the PEACE facility she was raised in, her ideals and believes begin to shatter, forcing her to leave the path she was meant to follow.

What I loved the most was the storytelling, the pace of the story goes really well with the mood and action scenes, it was almost like watching a movie. It's a light read and the characters are well defined and with a lot of growth showing already in this first part of the story. Another enjoyable aspect was that the romance worked well with the thriller without overwhelming or pushing each other. This is just the first part of the series and it doesn't bring a satisfying closure at the end, so you will definitely want to keep reading the rest of the story. If you like action, dystopias, romance and kick-ass female characters, I would definitely recommend this title. *I got a copy from the author, that doesn't affect my review. ( )