The third act breakup removes at least half a star, honestly. It is pointless, shortly resolved, and - in my opinion - utterly out of character for two people who have prior not mucked about and let any miscommunication fester. In fact, our couples' dogged pursuit of clarity and communication in the earlier chapters was one of my favorite parts so it hurt even more when we decided to toss that straight out the window for a handful of pages.

Other than that. It was wonderful.

A 'dead dove do not' eat if I've ever read one! That said it's been almost two years since I read this and I still remember the horror of the flashbacks and the drama of the back-and-forth tension. Was I invested in the love story? Not... Really? But somehow the author kept it balanced enough that despite it absolutely being able to be read as the A plot, it settled quite nicely into the back seat for me.

I have been wanting to do a reread regardless of how much the flashbacks hurt me the first time around 🙃

It wasn't what I wanted and I'm not sure how much of that colored my opinion but I just could not enjoy Andrew. Victoria was lovely, her partner suffers from convenient idiocy to drive the plot. I can get over that to a certain degree but it would almost be better if he just was wildly making assumptions and knew it. Instead of being like 'ahah, proof my wife is awful' when literally nothing has been revealed.

I did really enjoy the fixing up of the manor and Victoria chatting amiably with her sisters in laws though and that was not an insubstantial part of the book. I just wish Andrew had been more a part of it. Honestly, I wish Victoria HAD taken a lover instead of her husband at the end ☠️