The tropes in here? Holy moly, angsty and messy.

I typically love these tropes. They're nuts. We had some that I won’t mention because they aren’t in the synopsis but as for the others—we had:
▪️ an accidental ‘ruination’
▪️ a marriage of convenience (with tons of ‘they live together and hate each other’)
▪️ a hero with alcoholism (even drunk at the wedding)
▪️ a rake (even after they’re married 👀)
▪️ an OM who broke off his engagement to the heroine
▪️ Daddy issues (him), mommy issues (also him)

Plus the ones I’m leaving out? Hoo boy.

Right now, this novella seems to have two types of reviews: 1) “what a ride—five stars,” and 2) “I hate one or more or these tropes, no no no no—DNF.”

Which, is fair 😆 But I have a different take: I love these tropes. I just think that this novella was too short to do them justice.

Things changed too fast. The rake reformation, the addiction recovery, and their hate to love romance arc all happened too suddenly to feel genuine or secure (because if they changed that easily, what’s to stop them changing back?). They kept having these ‘why am I suddenly acting like this?’ moments that character-breakingly became their new personalities. I like when a story digs a big hole for an MC, but I want to see them climb out. In this one, it felt like we teleported out more than anything and I specifically disliked that.