A review by unicyclegirl
The Traitor's Kiss by Erin Beaty

1.5

I finished this book through sheer force of will, and a consistently dimming hope that it would get better at some point. The world building was nearly non existent to the point where I genuinely didn't understand why any of these characters were so intently spying on each other, or for who. I didn't understand why

MC had to go 'undercover' as one of the brides, why there were brides at all, what the concordium was, or generally anyone's motivations. I thought the matchmaker might be up to something and was a little disappointed she wasn't (it was mighty suspicious that she kept asking Sage to spy on the soldiers. So...why??) I also thought Claire was 100% a spy for the Duke (would've been more interesting) the plot twist was just dumb. Ok fine, the prince needed to be undercover...but why as Quinn? Who is then undercover as the princes half brother? Because...  ??

I also had a really hard time following whose POV we were currently hearing from, as the audiobook narrator made no pauses, different voices, anything to denote that we'd swapped perspectives. It felt like pov changes happened back and forth within a single scene often, so I was just really confused. Mostly I'm confused why I even bothered finishing it. And for the life of me, I can't see how anyone would compare this with Austen beyond "women must get married because societal expectations", which is an incredibly superficial reading of Austen as it shares no other similarities I can see. Extra half star for the pretty cover.