Plot: To her peers, office worker Bonnie isn’t cut out for a high-powered corporate life. Sweet, bubbly, and a lover of all things feminine and cute, she hardly fits in. Little do her coworkers know, Bonnie had an unusual, isolated upbringing where her father taught her a very uncommon curriculum.

Then a late-night office attack reveals the unexpected: Bonnie is as sharp and capable as she is deadly. 

Catching the attention of a secret organization of assassins called Fianna, she is recruited as an apprentice. Inspired by a group of legendary Irish heroes, the Fianna are a covert, highly trained group dedicated to defending the world from chaos. Through any means necessary. 

In this dangerous new world, Bonnie thrives—but she still hasn’t won everyone over. Ronan Clarke, the organization’s top operative, sees her as a joke. Forced to work together, Bonnie fights to prove herself to her cold new partner—no matter what it takes.

Review: Tropes are becoming increasingly popular. If you at all venture into romance spaces you will see lots of trope talk. Readers will ask for recommendations by bundling tropes together in their request. Something like “enemies to lovers, grumpy sunshine, fated mates, with HEA, and open door, no why choose”. That stack of tropes may be meaningless to readers outside of the genre, for readers in the genre they can sometimes be more important than a plot synopsis. Obviously Romance isn’t the only genre with tropes but it is one of the few genres that talks about them so explicitly. I had a humorous realization awhile back that buddy cop movies were basically enemies to lovers. Crime readers may not talk about tropes in the same way but we all have ones we like. I love a good “getting the band back together” story.

It occurs to me as I’m writing this that music can do something similar. The main music genres have exploded into a constellation of smaller microgenres. So if someone asked me what I was listening to while writing this review, I could say “French Canadian, experimental, microtonal, math rock” and I’d be referring to Angine de Poitrine.

Even in the most trope heavy stories traditional qualities like story and character development and world building reign supreme. I’ve read smut books where the fucking was the best part because the story between those moments was so thin.

Accidental Assassin is a romantic crime story that comes out of this Romance tradition. It’s up front about its tropes, but is also a straight up espionage story. There are countless romantic spy and action romance stories, especially movies. We’re in Mr & Mrs Smith territory here. To a point anyway in vol 1. It seems by the end of the volume that a love triangle is starting to form as Bonnie and her oldest friend/co-worker seem to be crushing on each other and Bonnie and her brooding new partner might be heading in an enemies to lovers direction. But really, this volume is about her introduction into this secret organization, trying to balance the two sides of her new life, and prove her worth to her fellow agents. Another aspect that I’m sure will be developed in later volumes is her backstory. We see her father training her in self-defense and with weapons when she was a child. Who was this man and what’s his story.

Generally speaking, I really enjoy romantic crime stories like Mr & Mrs Smith, Out of Sight, Sparrow, The Thomas Crown Affair, and others. It’s clear the creator likes them too. The story won’t work for everyone (readers looking for realism) but Accidental Assassin is a lot of fun. It allows space to develop it’s fictional agency, it has plenty of action, the lead is charming and cute, she’s relatable but never goes too far into adorkable. There’s a lot of story left to explore in future volumes as Bonnie grows into her new role. The potential downside to any ongoing series like this is that there could be narrative wheel spinning later on, but that’s just acknowledging a possibility. I’m definitely going to check out volume 2 when it comes out.

Rating: positive/recommended

Availability: This is a popular comic and vol 1 is a new release. It’s available in print but if you want to read it digitally you’re going to have to read it on Webtoons where it originated.