people, this book was a RIDE!! i laughed, i cried, i loved some things and hated some others, lol. honestly, the best mark for me of if a book is good or not is whether it can make me feel something, and bro, did this book get me to feel all the things.

the action, the drama, the twists, a couple i saw coming, others i absolutely did not!!! i had so much fun, it's a testment to this book genuinely being entertaining that despite being frustrated for a moment there, i nonetheless picked it back up on the next day and basically devoured the rest of it.

broke back mountain but make it sweet as hell

i was putting this off thinking i couldn’t possibly like it as much as the last installments in the brides of karadok series but i was wrong!! thank god was i so wrong!!!!

also??? mason was… kinda… low key… adorable by the end of the book!?!?!?!???????? i love him and linnet????

this is the wives of karadok book i’ve enjoyed the least. i accidentally read the books out of order and the first in the series is the last of it i had to read, lol.

i think the author learned a few things along the way, since the latest books in the series have some new tricks and are slightly less formulaic. i’ve no complaints about alice coldbreath’s formula, of course, since i honestly don’t know what i’ll do with myself now that i’ve read all of her medieval novels… i suppose i’ll move on to her victorian ones, lol.

but onto this actual book! the villain was delightful and i kinda wish she did more, he’s one of my fave characters, lol. i also deeply enjoyed the female lead, mathilde grew a lot and it was a lot of fun to read her being cunning and seductive, asking and going after what she wanted! the male lead… was a bit more of the same, but the way mathilde had him on the palm of her hand was very good.

all in all very fun read and i recommend this entire series to anyone reading this review.

oh! also!

Spoiler

apparently there’s a tristan book in the works, i’m so excited for it!!!! i hope there’s spies and intrigue!!! and although reformed he continues to be just as fun!!

I LOVE THE VAWDREY BROTHERS

the sweetest out of the main trilogy, but kinda more sex scenes than what was strictly necessary and that's Me saying this lol

in some aspects, this was still very slice of life.

except on the parts that it wasn’t.

leander and axton are such delightful characters, specially ax, oh my god he is so good. this book was actually even better than the first and i am very excited to read the third and final one.

the ending of this one hurt as all hell and i have, like, at least three theories on how this can be wrapped up and i’m so excited to be wrong on all of them, lol.

i very much recommend this series.