This is a tough one for me to rate. Because that romance plot was not it. At all. Yet overall, I wasn’t having a bad time, because the non-romance parts of the book were interesting? (Who am I?)

Even though I’m almost never looking for a mystery plot, I was still entertained by this whodunnit. It was just convoluted enough to keep me guessing 😆 Our MCs were also pretty fun. I especially liked our heroine: she was self-reliant and street smart but still traditionally feminine—in a way that was just cool. 

But the romance plot was a No for me, dawg. It felt rushed because it occurred over just a few days and was overshadowed by the mystery stuff.

But mostly, the Other Woman drama? Strongly disliked. He was in love with someone else (and talked about her a lot 😬)… yet, these two MCs were getting emotionally and physically intimate while he was still in love with that person (literally post-💦 inside of our heroine, he was talking about how much he loves this other woman and how perfect she is?? I could not).

From his perspective, it felt cheater-y. And from her perspective, I was just like “Girl, you’re better than this!” If there had been some growth (even a grovel), I could have been into it. But our hero felt really boy-ish (even F-boy-ish?) the whole time. Nothing was really addressed. And there seemed to be a ‘married people cheat but still love each other’ theme going on with some of the other side character couples? The whole thing put me on edge—it didn’t feel like a reformed rake story… just a rake story 😅