Thank you to BookSirens and the author for the ARC. Sadly, this book fell flat for me as it speeds through any chance of a mysterious or haunting atmosphere within the first twenty percent or so.

Charlotte is a confused FMC, although part of this is the setting she’s in. It’s vaguely historical with strong patriarchal overtones in that women are restricted from weapons and trousers and expected to marry strong men, but then there are exceptions that don’t seem to be notable in that society in any way (Pari, the lesbian marriage in the other kingdom). Without the groundwork, it’s exclusionary for the sake of being ‘not like other girls’ which does Charlotte no favours in being a likeable or consistent character.

Even the setting suffers from this lack of clarity, is Kilthorne a country? There’s mention of a king so probably not. A city, a town, a province, an estate? It’s unclear.

The plot is jumbled, with any chance of a good gothic mystery destroyed in the first few chapters. Sebastien’s identity is revealed, the cause of Charlotte’s haunting is revealed, even the mystery of the vampires is revealed, and nothing is left until later. The plot that follows is the threads of a mystery that is mostly a refrain of Sebastian Big, Charlotte squeamish around blood and the most ineffectual villain ever with his motive the only thing obscured and that’s because it doesn’t make any sense.

There’s a twenty-odd age gap introduced between the MMC and the FMC through this motive which isn’t addressed in the slightest. The romance was piecemeal and not compelling between Sebastian and Charlotte as her side of it is giving poor choices and even poorer reactions.

All in all, the premise was incredibly compelling but the writing failed to follow through with any of it.

Thank you to the author for this ARC of such an exceptionally sweet and spicy novella!

It’s wondrously inclusive with a plus-sized sex worker FMC, a trans MMC with chronic pain, and an aromantic MMC whose identity is so carefully explored within the text. The storyline is a tad fantastical, but it’s grounded in careful consent and deliberate boundaries which is so wholesome to see in an explicitly spicy story of this set up. However, the characters are where the story really shines.

It’s a novella which by the nature of it has a limited page count but every one of those pages are used to their full potential. We get the backstory for Bryce and Rory, an overview of a type of aromanticism and how that could fit into a relationship, and several well-written gloriously sweet and varied spicy scenes. Honestly, full kudos to the author, this was fantastic.