Oh boy that was painful to get through. This just barely made it to 3 stars tbh

Characters are great
Writing style is nice
Romance *chefs kiss*

But world building? Who is she
Logic? Don’t know her
Plot? Don’t even get me started

So what's going on here?
Honestly? I have no idea. 464 pages and I have literally no clue what actually happened. The romance plot was done well, it was good and slow burn. But as for the actual plot, I couldn't even really guess. There were a lot of attempted assassinations, a lot of names being thrown around but no explanation of who they were or why they were bad guys, a revenge plot that felt like it went no where. Actually that's a good summary for this book as a whole, a lot of random stuff thrown together that didn't really go anywhere and just left me confused as all hell. That's about the only plot summary that I can give ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What I loved
I really enjoyed the romance and the characters! The main characters and a few of the side characters who had more screen time all had their own identifiable voices, they felt real and tangible, and they were a lot of fun. I especially liked the friendship dynamic between Lia, Xania, and Matthias. Coin interested me a lot but unfortunately he didn't play a very big role (even though his name is in the title and I spent the entire book waiting for some big reveal that had to do with him... it never came). As for the romance, it was pretty swoon worthy. I mean, they were flirting with lesbian romance novels, how could I not love it? I really liked that they recognized the huge power imbalance in their relationship, and that Xania wasn't afraid to tell Lia when she was being a bitch lmfao. I thought the entire romance was so well done, their relationship was fantastic, and I wish that had been the main focus of the book instead of whatever else was going on

What I didn't love
Pretty much everything else? I'm genuinely surprised at myself for even finishing it to be honest. I forced myself to read the last 200 pages in one sitting last night, because I knew if I didn't finish it then I probably wasn't going to pick it back up. It was just so boring! At first I was really into the political intrigue and the court drama and all that, but when I realized that was what the entire plot was going to be?? Yikes. It was such a snooze. There were no high stakes, nothing to keep me interested, the revenge plot fell completely flat, and basically every plot line that was attempted just got all jumbled up into one confused mess that didn't actually go anywhere at all. Also the time line threw me for a loop; there's one part at the end where I thought they'd been on the road for about 4 days, and then all of sudden someone was like "over the last two months of travelling" and I was SHOOK. So that wasn't done well at all either. Just everything, everything outside of the romance was not done well (for my tastes at least) and it was a struggle to get through

Overall thoughts
I'm mostly just disappointed. I really, really wanted to like this one, it was one of my most anticipated 2020 releases and it just didn't even come close to my expectations. I will definitely read more from this author if there's a strong romance element, but my first impression of her is not great. Oh well, not every book can be a 5 star!