Reviewed by Jess
TITLE: Levitate
AUTHOR: Geonn Cannon
PUBLISHER: Supposed Crimes
LENGTH: 178 pages
RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2019
BLURB:
To Cassiane Jurick, there is nothing in the world as important as The Mission. As a covert agent for Greek intelligence, she disappears into whatever role she’s given. Her latest mission ends in failure and nearly costs Cassiane her life, but she is rescued and nursed back to health by her handler, Timothea Riddock. Adrift between assignments and still recuperating from her injuries, Cassiane begins a physical relationship with Timothea.
Their relationship is put on hold by the arrival of another agent, Constance Grimaldi, who brings them a new mission: a Soviet chemist has arrived in Berlin with a new strain of anthrax which they believe he plans to sell to one of their enemies. As Cassiane disappears into her latest identity, Timothea finds herself drawn to Constance.
From a ghost station in the shadow of the Berlin Wall to hidden strongholds hidden deep inside dark German forests, the three agents must learn to trust one another because this mission’s failure would mean certain death.
REVIEW:
I’m a huge fan of Geonn Cannon’s works. He’s consistently written lady-led romances that highlight both lesbian love and the complexity of female characters. He has mastered several genres and has even written a series that is currently being produced for television. So you could say that I hold him in pretty high regard, and I was insanely excited for this book. This is new territory for canon—a complex spy novel set in 1980’s Germany—but the characters and their struggles feel very familiar. Not everything worked for me, but I’m confident in saying Cannon is skilled at writing a spy mystery.
To start, we meet two agents in Berlin—Cassiane and Timothea, who are now hiding underground while Cassiane recovers from a field injury. Their close quarters soon push them closer, and they start a romance that has been long-coming, only to be interrupted by a new mission from a third agent, Constance. But soon, they welcome Constance into their confidence and their bed, and the three women form a team to bring down a potential terrorist hiding out in a nearby hotel.
The spycraft moves deftly, never boring us or faking us out with characters who make amateur decisions. These women are good at what they do, and they all have plenty of blood on their hands. Though I wouldn’t say we are as super immersed in the politics of the Soviet Union around the Berlin Wall as I hoped, the emotions and fears of the time feel urgent, and they are reflected in the characters’ motives. We always feel like everything could come crashing down with the smallest misstep, which I think is good in a spy novel. It has all the necessary tension.
Towards the end, the title comes into play as the characters fall into balance with one another and begin to rise above their fears and doubts regarding a poly lesbian relationship within the confides of a dangerous job. Love can feel like levitation, making everything light and buoyant and wonderful, but that feeling was never earned. Their sexual scenes are scorching, and the dynamics of writing three women in one sex scene are handled perfectly, but the love aspect is still on the back burner.
Each character is individually well-crafted—Con’s struggles with violence, Timo’s protectiveness over her agents, and Cassiane’s restless all make sense and make for a great set of secret agent characters who play well off each other in the field. But I often got all three women mixed up when they interacted—their individual dynamics with each other didn’t feel as fully-fleshed as they could be. A successul poly romance needs those little details to be truly great.
I’ve really loved most of Cannon’s books, so this one was just a little disappointing in the end. I never got as deep into his characters’ minds as I usually do, and their chemistry just never jumped off the page. This is a gripping spy book, but as a romance, I was just left wanting more.
RATING: 
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