Didn’t enjoy this as much as the second book, but liked it better than the first. The Cinderella thing was cute, I thought it might make me cringe but surprisingly it didn’t. However, I’m not a big fan of the instalove trope.

Araminta is one of the worst stepmothers I’ve ever encountered. I also kept pronouncing her name like Amarantha in my head, which is believe is the name of the lame villain from Acotar (I only know this because I watched Cindy’s rant video on YouTube, I haven’t read it

For some reason I just didn’t click with this story. I didn’t care about any of the characters and sometimes the plot confused the hell out of me. I don’t like to DNF books, because it makes me feel like a quitter, but honestly, I’m just glad it’s over...

2 stars

Mooi verhaal geschreven vanuit 3 vrouwen van verschillende generaties. Ik hou erg van deze manier van schrijven, met flashbacks zeg maar. Lucinda Riley doet dit bijvoorbeeld ook in haar Zeven Zussen romans. Elk hoofdstuk wordt weer een tipje van de sluier opgelicht en kom je meer te weten over het verborgen verleden van de familie.

Normaal ben ik geen fan van boeken geschreven in de eerste persoon. Het kan wat kinderlijk overkomen vind ik. Ondanks dat, had ik er niet zo veel last van tijdens het lezen. Er had voor mij wel iets meer van het historische aspect aan bod mogen komen en iets minder “tienerliefde” (nu ben ik officieel oud

So I finally finished this! It took me a long time to read. I can’t quite put my finger on it why, but when I was about a third into the book I lost interest a little bit and had to make myself pick it up again to continue reading. It was a very intriguing story so I wanted to know how it ended but maybe the pacing was a little slow for me? Halfway through it picked up again (when Byatt’s chapters start) and the end, especially, was very thrilling and on-the-edge-of-your-seat-exciting.

At times, I didn’t fully understand the characters, so I was surprised or confused by their actions sometimes. On the one hand it made me feel like maybe I wasn’t paying attention enough and should be reading something between the lines, but on the other hand it made the story really interesting. Predictably of story or character usually isn’t a positive thing anyways

3 stars

I’m sad I didn’t enjoy this one as much as I did the others in the series. The story just didn’t captivate me the same way. I did really enjoy the interaction between Eloise and Philip’s children, but I think I’d just expected more from Eloise’s story. Since she’s one of my favourite characters (at least in the Netflix series), I might have had too high standards for her. Her character fell kind of flat and she felt very generic to me. Not something I would’ve ever expected to say about Eloise. Very disappointing.

Philip was quite an interesting character and I did like him, some of the time, but like all of the male characters in this series he definitely has his issues. He has no idea how to be a father to his children and I guess that’s what the story is largely about, but I found his character development very minimal. The romance also wasn’t that great. He’s basically just looking for a mother for his children and hey, how convenient is it that she also fills his needs in the bedroom