This was my first historical fiction book and I had a lot of hope for it, especially in the first hundred pages. I definitely don't think my qualms of this book are representative of the entire genre, so I'm going to happily be trying again. Most of my issues were with the development of the romance and the miscommunication between the two characters. If they'd actually had conversations this book would've been 100 pages long and would have saved me the constant eye rolls and boredom with Lucy's shenanigans at the end of the novel. But anyway, I liked Tessa Dare's writing and I found the story moderately compelling, so there's that, I just didn't like this particular storyline (and ugh the best friend's brother trope is SO GOOD and this did it so poorly).

I also wish that we could have seen more of the historical setting because I really wanted to know (1) what on country this took place in, (2) what year, (3) what political things were happening, but I think I hit the wrong genre for any of that background info. We'll see.

-Book Hugger