Heath takes on some HEAVY themes here (including assisted suicide of a terminally ill character, chronic illness/disease in a separate character, and grief), and I was ultimately disappointed with the handling of each. Most upsetting is how the chronic illness storyline is handled and the ways in which it is positioned as impacting the physical intimacy between characters - the resulting scenes are aggressively heteronormative, ableist, inexcusably unsafe and frankly just... Confusing. I've never been this uncomfortable with the physical intimacy in a historical romance. The third act includes new and wholly unnecessary characters (including a casually inserted confederate apologist), new conflicts and unnecessary trauma dumping between unrelated characters. I was disappointed that what I perceived to be the primary conflict (based on the first half of the book) is hastily resolved within the last ten pages. So disappointed that this was such a miss for me, because I loved The Outlaw and the Lady.