Overall Grade: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Tropes: forbidden romance; boss & employee; forced proximity; found family; secret billionaire
“This isn’t a light way to pass the time This is an agony of desire.”
Skye Warren’s Red Flags is a mystery, the first book of a trilogy named Cirque des Miroirs, the fictional name of the circus in her story. It’s the kind of start that intrigues the reader without giving much away. Her characters, Logan and Sienna, are still fairly shrouded in secrecy by the compelling conclusion of this book. She indulges her reader with a cast of characters that beg for more information, giving the story a fragmented feeling. This fragmentation affects the pacing, causing the reader to often feel the quick starts and abrupt stops of Logan and Sienna’s journey. However, the compelling cliffhanger has already created a cloud of anticipation for book 2, White Lies. The circus theme isn’t one I’ve read to date, and given that Skye Warren’s superpower is crafting grand universes of stories, I see the potential for this world, given that the cast is quite large to begin. Logan and Sienna’s journey is one of instant attraction with the push and pull of a forbidden romance. Warren’s brand of eroticism finds purchase in Red Flags, but it never fully ignites as her readers might be used to. This book exists to set the stage for the greater trilogy, I think.
Stylistically, Warren leans into the mirror image as an apt metaphor for the illusion of truly knowing a person or situation. She also uses the repetition of the “red flag,” both an image from the circus and a symbol of someone’s shortcomings, to underscore Logan’s mystery. Warren nods to domestic violence, the inequities of women in society, and the censure of being an outsider throughout her story to lend gravity to it.
All of these qualities conspire to bring about a book that will grab your attention and keep you pining for more from Skye Warren’s Cirque des Miroirs trilogy. I am ready for White Lies…like now!
In love and romance,
Professor A
Professor Romance 