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A review by una_macchia
The Butterfly Bride by Vanessa Riley
3.0
This was a sweet story and I enjoyed Frederica and Jasper's romance. However, the pacing was somewhat off. I felt like it dragged in the middle as the suspense plot fell by the wayside, and both characters' inability to communicate got more frustrating as it went on. Basically as the story progresses, they both say and do things that make it clear to the reader that they love each other and make abortive attempts to communicate their needs, but they can't recognize those signs in each other. It makes sense because they have different perspectives and communication styles, but I would have liked it to be resolved faster. I was also bothered by the way the mystery is resolved ).
A good chunk of the plot deals with the heroine's social position as the illegitimate, biracial daughter of a duke and a courtesan, and I really liked the exploration of how that lack of stability / solid social acceptance has affected her, and the strategies she's developed to navigate that. The hero is not entirely unaware of those issues (presumably because his sister-in-law is a woman of color also, though I haven't read The Bittersweet Bride so I don't have the full backstory here) but he doesn't totally get it. They've known each other for a year when the story starts, but he doesn't know her as well as he thinks, and he has to learn who she truly is beneath her social persona. I would have liked more character development on her side -- she has a big self-sacrificing streak and is very much a people-pleaser, and I wanted to see her grow more towards focusing on her own happiness and feeling less insecure. That said, I tend to have trouble with "martyr" heroines, so maybe that's more just a me thing than a flaw in the book. Overall, not my favorite book but the strong points were compelling enough to get me interested in more from Vanessa Riley.
Spoiler
they figure out who the villain is and the heroine's father basically has him killed by his dogs. I guess this is a way of dispatching the villain without getting the h/h's hands too dirty, but I found it pretty disturbing that this happens and then is just glossed over?A good chunk of the plot deals with the heroine's social position as the illegitimate, biracial daughter of a duke and a courtesan, and I really liked the exploration of how that lack of stability / solid social acceptance has affected her, and the strategies she's developed to navigate that. The hero is not entirely unaware of those issues (presumably because his sister-in-law is a woman of color also, though I haven't read The Bittersweet Bride so I don't have the full backstory here) but he doesn't totally get it. They've known each other for a year when the story starts, but he doesn't know her as well as he thinks, and he has to learn who she truly is beneath her social persona. I would have liked more character development on her side -- she has a big self-sacrificing streak and is very much a people-pleaser, and I wanted to see her grow more towards focusing on her own happiness and feeling less insecure. That said, I tend to have trouble with "martyr" heroines, so maybe that's more just a me thing than a flaw in the book. Overall, not my favorite book but the strong points were compelling enough to get me interested in more from Vanessa Riley.