Clark is definitely a master at finding moments of humor among the magical and mysterious. I found myself unable to put this book down. There’s lots of depth given to the female characters, and I enjoyed seeing the development of Fatma and Hadia’s working relationship, especially as two women in a male-dominated career. Also, I loved Fatma’s girlfriend Siti; I want to be her when I grow up 😭 This book also points out the audacity of white people coming into another country to “appreciate” the culture yet act supremely bigoted and haughty towards the native people. I absolutely loved the twist, and I’m looking forward to more books in this series!

This is my 2nd Nikki Payne book, and while I finished the first Pride and Protest, some of the same issues I had in that book, I had in this one. For a contemporary romantic comedy, Sex, Lies, and Sensibility moves too slow. There are moments of funniness and hilarity, but the romance is entirely too slow going, and there’s no major character development to compensate for the glacial pace at which we move. What made me give up on this one instead of powering thru, much like how I did in Pride and Protest, is that I realized at 48% that I truly did not care about these characters. They were not engaging or enticing (like the protagonists in Pride and Protest were), and that coupled with the glacial plot development made me realize I needed to put the book down. I am looking forward to seeing if, in her third book, Payne can tighten the plot, enhance the romance, and deliver engaging protagonists because I do think she has important messages built within her novels.