I honestly kinda ate this one up? This didn’t feel like a straight up romance, there was so much going up behind the scenes that it felt more litfic with romance elements.

Even though the romance is strong I wish we got a little more development. It doesn’t really get going until over half way through and by that time there’s so many subplots going on at once that it felt a little lacklustre.

While I wouldn’t say this book is overly descriptive I do think that it leaned heavily into the drama aspect which I won’t lie.. kept me reading. There’s about 3ish subplots going on here other than the romance was it’ll keep you on your toes!

While Dancy is well fleshed out, given backstory and trauma that I wished we delved deeper into, Clint felt very one dimensional and a lot of the stuff in his life got brushed over or only touched the surface.

The sex. This is pretty low stream. It’s a slowburn which works extremely well for these two as they have history together so I mean… they can’t really jump straight into bed.

A quick read. I won’t say easy as there is some tough subject matter so check triggers before going into it. I’m not 100% certain I liked the epilogue but I don’t really tend to enjoy those kinds of epilogues from those certain POV’s 🤷‍♀️

I DEVOURED THIS!!

I think this is the most histrom coded contemporary romance I’ve ever read and I’m not one bit mad at the bonkers plot!

Daisy’s father arranges a marriage between her and Alex because she’s gone a little crazy on the spending and she needs to be taught how to rein it in and live in the real world. Alex is a circus manager with a few secrets up his sleeve who doesn’t necessarily want a wife but he’s beholden to Daisy’s father for Reasons so agrees to marry her. What Daisy doesn’t know though is that she’s quite literally running away with the circus.

The romance. This is very much your grumpy/sunshine dynamic. These two can’t stand each other at the beginning, while Daisy is more hesitant at first she soon finds her footing and her way around the animals and her development as a character is beautiful to read. Alex is your troubled, dark and broody mmc who has a lot of secrets lurking in the dark. He doesn’t believe in love and despite feeling Huge Feelings he repeatedly tells Daisy this. Their dynamic is so interesting because you can literally see the relationship grow on page and even though Alex is denying his feelings it’s so evident that he loves her.

The sex. I would say this is pretty mild. There some open door scenes but more closed door scenes than anything else. I have an issue with some of moments being non consensual but the book is very much of its time. There’s a moment at 94% ish that really had me side side eyeing Alex because he’s exactly what he calls himself, the fact you’re married doesn’t make it any less of a fact so 🤷‍♀️

Animal cruelty. In a way this book is more progressive in some aspects than in others and most of the time the way the animals are treated is horrible but Daisy soon changes that. There’s a lot of nuance here, a lot of conversation surrounding the fact that even if they were to let go of the animals it means they’ve spent so much time with the circus that they wouldn’t be able to live in their normal habitat or could be sold off to people who are less caring than them.

Although I had some gripes with some decisions I think it’s just down to the era the book was published. I thought this was a fun, chaotic read with some great characters and I couldn’t put it down.

2.75 ⭐️ This one left me a little confused.

The prologue opens up with Viola marrying her late husband’s cousin, Richard. There’s anger, tension and it’s very obvious she dislikes him. Then we get a dual timeline story where these two knew each other 11 years ago and were kinda of… thrown together by Violas late husband Edward in hopes that they’d have sex and that she’d get pregnant so he could pass the child off as his (he was unable to get his previous two wives pregnant). Of course Viola and Richard fall in love, they have sex, they part ways, she gets pregnant,shit goes down and they agree that it’s for the best if they don’t see each other again because nothing can come of their relationship.

That’s all well and good. But 11 years later, edward has passed away, the boys are growing up and Richard has now propositioned Viola into marry him and to give him an heir because he cannot inherit from his aunt without marriage and a child. Viola accepts… and she seems kinda fine with it? So why the vitriol and dramatics at the wedding when she was never that type of person to begin with? Not to mention viola acts like she doesn’t know Richard AT ALL, and I would argue that’s true given how little time they spent together in the past it just seems as if she’s actually never met him which was confusing to go back and read once the book was over because theres not that many hints…

These characters are so all over the place in the first few chapters, I never got a good scope on them. They fell in love so quickly through a “tell and not show” dynamic in the “past” chapters that I just wasn’t buying their romance. I think if we got more lead up to the marriage and the prologue had given us a much more tighter summary of past events it wouldn’t have left me guessing if they suited each other.

The sex. Why didn’t we get an emotional sex scene once they married and got together again? We get around 2 full scenes that happen at the start of the book and it’s when things are stilted with them. It’s not emotional at all and reads a lot more clinical. The rest of the sex is either closed door or a brief mention but we actually don’t get any that’s actually intimate even when we were in the past chapters where they fell in love we get nothing? It just felt odd.

I wanted more romance I wanted more connection and intimacy and longing.

I will say that I didn’t want to put it down, I needed to know what happened next so I kept going. The writing is a little choppy at times where it took me a time to know what was going on which isn’t usually a problem for me.

The “twist” at the end wasn’t my favourite and it felt like once again viola was manipulated into something else she had no control over. I think that part could have been omitted as Viola had already come to terms with why they married and seemed to almost disregard it because she loved him. It also felt like her decision to marry Richard was something she herself decided on (one of the only decisions in her life she was able to make for herself) and for it to be somewhat manipulation on Richard’s part took that agency away from her. It felt unnecessary.

Overall a quick read, if you’re looking for emotional stakes, angst, longing and loads of yearning I’m not sure you’ll find it here as the parts of this story that could have had that are written in a way that feels like the reader is getting a quick montage while looking down from above with these characters.