I'm just going to start off by saying I have not read The Count of Monte Cristo - I think I may have seen part of the movie, but I honestly can't remember. So, this book was all new to me. And it was pretty fun.

When we meet Amaya, she's serving out her debt sentence aboard a slavers ship. She spots a man overboard and goes against the captain's wishes and saves the man. Thus changing her life forever.

This story is told in two different times: the past and the present. And they mesh together in a way that I found a little confusing at first because when it's first presented, you don't think it's past & present but boy and girl. So that took a hot minute but it smoothed itself out fairly quickly.

This is a tale of revenge. Plain and simple. Although whose revenge is up for debate. Everyone has a secret and no one is who they say they are. Amaya wants to find out what happened to her family and get back at the Mercado family so she pretends to be a Countess. Cayo makes deals with devils to save his sister while stumbling on secrets that could destroy his family forever. Both are drawn to each other for very different reasons but by the end, the reasons are all the same. And I did love reading how they all came together.

I do have to say, for as smart as Amaya thought she was, she was pretty dumb. She trusted blindly and didn't question anything that she should have. But I guess that just goes to show that revenge does not bring the closure one needs. The ending left so much open that it pretty much guaranteed that I will be reading the sequel.