This is just plain bad. It read like really shitty fan fiction. I liked the idea of an adult choose-your-own-adventure story, but the authors (yes, it took TWO authors to churn out this pile of garbage) seemingly decided that the gimmick was enough and they didn't actually have to think about anything else like...you know...character development, plot, and dialogue.

Historical romance is actually a really good vehicle for this kind of story. After all, there are a lot of things about historical romance that isn't exactly realistic. Dukes marrying governesses, courtesans becoming Countesses, marriage of convenience turns to true love, etc. But for me, outlandish premises don't negate the need for establishing characters with personalities and motivations for what they do. It also doesn't negate the need for some sort of plot that isn't just a bunch of tropes strung together.

The fact that this book was anachronistic AF also didn't do it any favors. There are words and phrases in this book that just don't fit in the time period of this story, which only adds to the overall amateurish feel.

Another issue is with the format itself. This is touted as a 'choose your own adventure' historical romance. But a majority of the 'choices' only show one choice, or if there are two you end up having to do them both regardless. So really, the only choice is in the suitor that you follow. Once you establish which man (or woman, as there is apparently one set of choices that leads you to a female love interest) you are going to romance, it pretty much become a run-of-the-mill romance, albeit a poorly-written one.

I read through one 'adventure' and was going to go back and start another, but the love interest didn't actually interest me at all. And I already knew I didn't like the writing or storytelling here at all anyway, so I just called it a day.

I see a lot of four and five star reviews talking about this as a parody. But the thing is, a good parody should be clever, with some nuance in the writing and understanding of the themes they are poking fun at. There is nothing about this that is remotely witty. It feels like a historical romance written by two people who have never read a historical romance in their lives and just went off of their perception of what the genre entails.

The one redeeming quality of this is that it was short, because I only read about of third of the content of the book. And honestly, that was enough.