Reviews

I really enjoyed the first half of this. It was silly and over-the-top at times, but it was also fun and sexy. Evan and Luz’s banter was witty and fun to read, and they had a ton of chemistry. I loved seeing Europe of the 1880s through a BIPOC lens, especially in the context of a world’s fair.

The pacing was a bit odd to me because the couple kisses at the 20% mark (the same day they meet too). Then Evan gives her an orgasm for the first time at 40% (the day after they first met) which is when he proposes a marriage of convenience. Then they have sex for the first time 50% in. That all is way too early in the book for my taste, and it’s also extremely fast for the time period! Kinda crazy that Evan was calling Luz his heart and all other kinds of pet names one day after meeting her.

Well since the first half was all instant love/lust, what happened in the second half? Just the same argument over and over again. Around the halfway mark, Luz made a huge assumption about Evan that was obviously incorrect to the reader since we also got Evan’s POV. Then Evan started getting super possessive, which only increased Luz’s anger. Then the two talked about their issue very briefly before having make-up sex. Wash, rinse, and repeat.

This couple never actually talked about what was causing their main issue of assuming the worst of the other, or how they could fix that. The narrative made it seem like sex fixes that. I know this is supposed to be a fun lil romance novel, but personally I have a hard time rooting for a couple with such major communication issues.

The plot was also weird too. I thought Luz’s issues would be the main plot since the book is titled after her, but her trust stuff is resolved off page. And then Evan’s dad’s drama was the focus of most of the second half and I just couldn’t make myself care about his one-note evil dad that none of the kids have a single good feeling towards (unrealistic) or the status of his dukedom. And those scenes at the ball with the “verbal evisceration” between Luz and one of Evan’s past flames and Luz and Evan’s dad was so cartoonish, like it had rap battle vibes lol. Not to mention the cartoonish

”oh btw Evan, we just happened to find cufflinks with the initials of that guy who was managing Luz’s trust!”

Like WOW, what a convenient clue at the perfect time lmao that cracked me up.

I did really enjoy Luz’s feminist rants in the beginning of the book, and some of them were really powerful, especially when she talked about how her experience overlapped with the racism directed towards her and other people who looked like her in the British colonies. But near the end of the book she just seemed like a flaming hypocrite. She told Evan that she doesn’t “make a habit of seeing women as [her] competition.” GIRL, you literally blew up

at Evan for not mentioning his ex

because you thought she was your competition…. Practice what you preach 😭

(And random pet peeve as someone who’s been lifting weights for almost a decade: the narrative kept describing Evan’s legs and back as super muscular but there was zero indication that this man had ever done any physical labor whatsoever in his entire life 🫠 ma’am that is impossible, especially in a time where weight lifting was barely a thing) This book really stuck to the HYUGE muscular alpha male man and small but curvy feisty Latina woman archetypes and it was a bit much.

I tentatively plan on continuing in the series since the side characters were intriguing, and the next book is sapphic. I’ll definitely eyeball read it instead of listening though because I did not like this narrator. The MMC’s voice was a whispered Scottish accent that was nowhere near deep enough to sound like a man (which kept throwing me off when the narrative mentioned his deep voice) and the FMC’s voice sounded like a modern California girl with tons of vocal fry that got SUPER grating. I was so glad when the audio was over so I wouldn’t have to listen to that anymore lmao.

tl;dr: I had a lot of silly fun with the first half, but I lost interest and started to actively dislike the second half. So I guess that averages out to a 3 star read for me.

cgbmartin's review

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adventurous hopeful medium-paced

4.0

nholman006's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

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