4.5 stars I had this audiobook out from Overdrive a few months back and my loan expired and I had to go back on the waiting list.

It was worth the wait. I really enjoyed this book. From the flawed but lovable characters to the fun rom-com plot to the rich setting, I was totally hooked on this.

I love that our heroine is smart and that our hero is as attracted to that side of her as he is to her physical appearance. As far as he goes, I liked him quite a bit, although I found his behavior in the first half of the novel to be really not okay. I could see a lot of people having issues with it, but for me I really liked the fact that he understands that what he did was wrong and that he spends the majority of the second half atoning for his actions. He's not let off the hook right away, and I appreciate that because too often in romance we're only given like 5-10 pages near the end for the character who messed up to make amends.

I listened to this on audiobook and thought the voice actor was fantastic. Many of the characters had non-American accents and she seemed to flow in and out of that dialogue seemlessly. I also enjoyed the emotion and humor she was able to inject story. Part of that already built into the text with fun and witty writing, but the wonderful voice performance absolutely enhanced my enjoyment.

The only reason this doesn't get a full five stars from me is that I felt like there were some things in here that weren't quite resolved. This is the first book in a companion series, so maybe some of these things will be addressed in future books or novellas, but I would've liked a couple more scenes between Naledi and her cousin, and also between Naledi and her grandparents.

I will definitely be reading the following books in this series, and can't wait to see some of the side characters get their own stories.