This one wasn't for me. It had too many of my pet peeves.µ≤

The nonsense—
▪️ from the ‘unrelated American woman inheriting a ducal castle’ plotline, to the (illegal?) forced proximity, to our non-heiress FMC not panicking about maintaining this derelict property + ducal servants, except that the MMC was nonsensically paying for its maintenance even though he’d never owned it…
▪️ the story-breaking-ness of this setup alone = one star from me.

The 0% swoony romance—
▪️ I don’t mind miscommunication. I do mind when it’s the plot device behind every single romantic interaction.
▪️ we were going for a “you are the bane of my existence, and the object of all my desires” thing. But their enemies status was lame-o. So instead it was a ‘they respectfully worked together and then the MMC was randomly incredibly vulgar’ story. Which I hated.
▪️ speaking of hate: books that try to combine a heroine’s independence arc with spanking. Especially given how much of a douche he was. The spanking needed to GTFO.

The Arab-American heroine—
▪️ this was what I was most excited for! But her background wasn’t at all defined and had very little impact on the story.
▪️ I temporarily DNFed this to read articles on the first wave of Arab-American immigration instead. And learning about Ottoman-era Palestine was both incredibly interesting and important to everything that has happened irl since. It was such a rich and diverse region when her family would have emigrated—I’m mad she was so vaguely characterized.
▪️ I wanted the book to celebrate her heritage. Instead it focused more the racism of secondary characters or the Orientalism of the MMC—without much pushback.

Also, the “ugh” I felt when the mystery baddy was both that obvious and that random.

Also also, the hero quoted The Shining.