This is maybe not the Alyssa Cole book I should've started with. It was a slow starter that almost had me DNFing, an extremely rare occurrence. I was happy that I stuck it out, but it's just not for me. Royalty, especially modern royalty, isn't really my thing, but I had a particularly hard time warming up to these royals. The parts of the plot revolving around the culture, religion, past queens, etc., were interesting. And I see that the next book is about a certain investigative fireball/agent of chaos that makes a too-brief appearance in this one, so I might still give that one a try.

Content notes: emotional manipulation, anxiety, death of a parent, steamy sex scenes