This is a masterpiece. I stayed up till 2 am, the last 30 pages are the best writing I've read in a while. THE SYNOPSIS DOES NOT DO IT JUSTICE. It's so good even if she wasn't trying to kill him it would be enjoyable. Strong female protagonist, (ignoring the fact that she's evil), romance (somewhat light, nothing more than some naked swimming and kissing), and evidently fantasy, although other than the "shadow curse" and it being in a non existent place, there's no magic.

The plot is masterful.

You think the book is done when they get their first happy ending (which was quite fairytale like, didn't really suit the characters or the book in an "ending" way, it works as a plot device), then they seperate the lovers, they find out a character I really liked was a traitor and then the grand finale professing their love for real ending that couldn't have been better.

This book makes you feel a lot of things, but the main takeaway for me is that even evil can find love. In fact, them being evil and basically murderers is forgotten about halfway through, and I definitely forgot she was planning to kill him, so the occasional reminders were helpful. Getting close to the end, I realized that one of them is either going to die (which in my opinion is a lazy way of making the readers feel something) or there will be some epic plot twists that I couldn't imagine but they end up together despite everything.

And the latter was right.

It's also a pretty slow burn. Immensely thankful to the author for not butchering the ending.