2.5⭐️ rounded up. I was super conflicted on this one and almost abandoned it a couple times. The story was really interesting and kept my attention but there were significant gaps in context to details, I had no concept of the time elapsing, and whenever Drue and Nicola were around each other they both acted like petulant children and I disliked both of them.

I found myself frustrated often with the lack of detail and context, forcing me to re-read sections I thought I must have missed but didn’t. Someone would be riding a horse in once sentence and the next, they would be standing next to someone; details in the scenes were not nearly descriptive enough to paint a good picture; Nicola or others would make judgments about people and you would have no idea why; etc. and then found out towards the end of the book 2 years had apparently lapsed. When?? It just didn’t make a lot of sense.

Also Drue, a skilled assassin/fighter/royalty couldn’t control his explosive temper, freaking out at the very slightest challenge or argument from a women. Not realistic. Someone like that would be forced to have good control over himself, and while sure, could have a temper, he wouldn’t just lose it and stalk off like a toddler immediately. Same for Nicola - she was super naive and foolish and would antagonize Drue with no good sense and also stalk off like a child, however towards the 2nd half of the book she thankfully got better. Overall neither had much grace or kindness towards each other when the slightest difference between them came up, especially Drue.

It just all made the book have points of being obnoxious in what could have been a really great story with tons of potential.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced copy of this book. All opinions are mine.