This is my third Rachel Harrison book and it made me realize that I'll probably love anything she writes. I quickly became addicted to this book and read the majority in less than a day.

As the premise goes, Clio, our fmc and her sisters Daphne and Leda end up under their father's custody as children and sporadically see their mother until she ends up never showing up and cutting contact. The girls grow up believing their mother was a horrible woman due to this and their father talking ill of her. They grow up and lead their lives until their mother dies. This lands the house their mother bought on the sisters, but only Clio has enough courage to go to the house. It needs a lot of work, but Clio is eager to prove herself as more than the dependent youngest sister. Shortly after starting renovations on the house though, things start to shift for Clio. Here is where the story started getting intriguing. Slow and subtle, but enough fuel to keep the fire going!

As the story goes on and things escalate with the house, in Clio's relationships, and most importantly, her family, the drama explodes to a crescendo. AND IT'S JUICY! Rachel Harrison knows how to combine drama and thrilling paranormal incidents SO well. The characters are always complex and fully fleshed to mold to the story. I felt satisfied and satiated finishing this. Sometimes I'm left with wanting like I do with some other books in this category, but that's not the case here!

5/5 stars

This gave me everything I needed from a regency era novel. If there's one thing I love about this genre is seeing how each author bends its laws. This is the kind of book I wanted when I was halfway through the Bridgerton series. I wanted a bit more femininity and inclusion, everything was just too prim and unghastly for my taste, WHERE'S THE SPICE? I can still see how the series set the precedent though.

Here we get an orphaned vicar's daughter named Annabelle that gets to be one of the first women at the famous Oxford university. Annabelle is just trying to get herself educated so she can provide for herself & get out of her cousin's employ. In the meantime starts to campaign for the suffragettes cause. While campaigning for the cause Annabelle happens to run into Duke of Montgomery, Sebastian. Bingo, she needs someone of his status to shout for their cause, but he's not easily persuaded. Sebastian is also famous for steering the queen's politics and being a bit rakish. Although the first meeting between the two was not the best, they sure weren't able to forget each other afterwards.

As the suffragettes make their next move they propose to enter themselves into the duke's favor through his younger brother. Naturally after that, Sebastian and Annabelle end up together often and begin to fall in love. Both are complete opposites, but after going back and forth and a shit ton of yearning (mostly on Sebastian's part) they decided to do what's best for them. The yearning is the best part for me. Sebastian isn't just anyone and because of his title and Annabelle's lack thereof, things get extra difficult.

Totally recommend this if you want a yearning brooding duke, a woman that never backs down, supportive girlfriends, the blooming of a beautiful cause, and so much more. I will definitely be putting the next novel on my 'to be read' list! And the author's note has a great bit of information on how the suffragette movement began and was dealt with around the 1880's.

5/5 stars

I had to stop reading this 115 pages in… I started to feel bad until my friend made me realize I usually push through books so that must mean this one wasn’t worthy…my friend was right. I am once again out of an audiobook credit, but at least I got to listen to Jacob Morgan for a couple of hours!

I was excited to read the arranged marriage trope in a modern non mafia setting, but was disappointed with the characters. Our FMC, Vivían is supposed to be 28 years old, but is written like she’s 18 years old. Vivian's new money parents are proof that money ruins people. They gave our FMC and her sister a humble beginning but then they came into money. Meaning they decided to use it as an excuse to marry their daughters off like a business deal to gain social status. And the daughters just go with it?? Vivian herself tells us she doesn’t need their money and in fact has her own business that does WELL. Vivian states that she doesn’t want to be disowned by her parents but they seem to be such cold people. I couldn’t fathom them actually caring for her should she need it, I mean, again, who just marries their kid off like property in 2022?! It’s so ridiculous along with Vivian's reasoning for agreeing to marry. These two things were a huge reason why I put this book in the ‘did not finish’ shelf.

Then there’s our MMC Dante. Vivian’s parents blackmail Dante into marrying their daughter to elevate their social status. New money tackiness according to Dante and I agree. These people also made their kids stop calling them “mom” and “dad” and now are called “mother” and “father.” Like what the fuck?? Why the readiness to obey them?

Dante is always brooding which is annoying, BUT understandable because Vivian is so incredibly daft. I found myself unable to focus with all the flimsy arguments she would make. She constantly treated Dante terribly due to his cold shoulder towards her, and I’m thinking, “why can’t he just tell her about the blackmail?” But at the same time I am wondering why the FUCK Vivian would think that some dude was just gonna be okay with having to marry her because her parents said so. If I was Dante I too would be annoyed with Vivian, she’s 28 and clueless as to what her parents have really gotten her into. Communication would alleviate a lot of tension there. There just needs to be more communication here and using miscommunication as a plot point is a waste of time imo. I’m glad someone posted a short summary of what happens in the book because that curiosity drove me for at least half the pages I read.

2.5/5 stars

The book had good bones and the writing wasn’t bad, but the plot and characters really needed a ton of work.