Reviews

Fantastic. This reminded me of Courtney Milan's Brothers Sinister series. With some kink. I devoured it.
Such tasty angst. Archer has secrets, and I think good reason to keep them. Poppy, meanwhile, is a joy to read about and someone I'd love to be my friend. You really believe she is a good businesswoman and talented botanist. The prose is excellent, the plot page-turning. I definitely believe them in love and that they have a future together.

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5.0

This book was recommended on Instagram, so I checked it out from the library. But, then I made the mistake of reading some reviews which talked about how bad the book was and the cheating. By that time, I was already 2-3 chapters in and the romance book writing was quite good and I had grown attached to the protagonist, a feminist botanist with a dream to expand her business. I kept reading.

I am glad I did because this romance novel is actually quite good! I wasn’t as put off by the cheating, the author does a good job of writing it and these other goodreads reviews blow it way out of proportion. I spent the first 3/4 of the book dreading the scene and then when I read it I was like, “that’s it? That’s what everyone is making a fuss about?” I had initially told myself that I would just finish reading this book and skip the rest of the series, but after actually finishing the book I am ready to move on to the second and third.

This book has a lot of typical romance novel tropes: miscommunication between protagonists, being secretly in love with each other but being too afraid of getting hurt to say or do anything, and steamy love scenes that take place in the library. But, there is light BDSM, so I would say this is not your typical historical / regency romance novel. Do yourself a favor and don’t read the other good read reviews. I don’t understand why they tear this book apart. It is actually one of the better romance novels I’ve read. Granted, there is a lot of angst, repressed feelings, shameful secrets, drama, and a happy ending, but isn’t that what we expect in all romance novels?