I often find romance heroines more likeable than many readers, but this one is just obnoxious. A lot of romance novels (including some I quite like) fall into a pattern where an asshole hero treats the martyr heroine like trash for most of the book, she loves him no matter how much he makes her suffer, and then he finally relents. The genders are reversed in this one but Naomi was so irritating that I couldn't enjoy their happy ending. I was more interested in the adventure/mystery plot than the romance, but of course this is the first book of a series so there's plenty left unknown. 3 stars because Veryan is a talented writer, but the story just wasn't to my taste.