This was overall a fine read, but several distracting modern elements (most glaringly, the heroine telling the hero "About last night...") kept it from feeling truly set in the past. I thought many events were contrived and the donkey element bordered on ridiculousness. It would have been better had the best friend character had more depth.

This book was just so much fun! The characters were silly, but also stayed true to themselves, and the situations were entertaining the whole way through. I only wish we got a few more pages at the end to see the couples settled, or at least some reactions from other characters to the way things ended up.

I really liked the heroine of this one, and the hero felt mostly realistic too. It was silly to have Mary recount literally the entire story to her future father-in-law at the end, but besides that, the pacing was pretty good, too. It was a fun time overall!

This was fine - there was a lot of common knowledge, but a few really useful perspectives, such as considering your natural energy and what times are best for you to do your hardest or easiest tasks. Some things didn't feel as researched as they could have been, and he would present his own experience as if it stood for everyone else, but this book never mentions a HUGE reality of life - family responsibilities. He acted like everyone's problems with productivity could be solved with more grit and planning, and that would make it so we had no distractions in our days.

The audiobook was really well done, and the world was fascinating, but I think the story suffered from the short form. This raised a lot of interesting questions but I didn't feel satisfied at the end.

I liked this ending to the series. The main couple's character arcs concluded nicely, and most of their conversations felt realistic. It was cool to see Jane's understanding of the magic system challenged by the Antiguan perspective. The audio book was really well done. The .5 stars off are for the too-rushed epilogue. Either that should've been left out or given more depth.

This may be my favorite of the series so far. The descriptions of a married couple dealing with a change in circumstance felt SO real, and the magic they used was fascinating. I loved scenes of Jane recognizing how limited her life had been, such as when she learned to make bread. Some plot elements still seemed overly dramatic or fantastical, but I enjoyed this read.

I read this book in almost one sitting - it was a decently cute but sometimes overly silly high school prom romance story with an obvious ending and a not-super-likable heroine.

The setting is done well, and you can tell Heyer did her research, but the exaggeration of characters was too much for me to believe. 

Maybe I'm just not the audience, but I like Condie's LDS fiction a lot better than this. I felt disappointed that the mysteries didn't all go together and most of the characters bled together like when someone at the end talks about it being "one of the frat boys." The main character syndrome felt extreme for a divorced woman whose worries about her kids were token at best. There were some good moments, but overall it was sad and dark without really adding redemption or resolution (which was maybe the point, but not my favorite read).