"After all this time spent choking down tasteless glop, someone was offering her meat."
- me whenever I'm reading Courtney Milan ( )

I was really into this up to the point (right after the e-book preview ended, lol) where a (chaperoned, from out of hearing range) man of the late-1800s English landowning class tells a woman of the English landowning class that she has "great tits." I don't know if it's historically accurate, but it's definitely ridiculous. It set an accurate tone for how the rest of the book went, anyway.

There were points thereafter where it started to get back up into the 3 or 4-star range (the obligatory wedding night sex scene was actually pretty good), but in the end it's forgettable, despite "disguised as a boy" being one of my near-bulletproof favorite tropes. Too bad! ( )

This was great! More social justice-oriented than 99% of romance novels, which is cool. Plus the plot was twisty and unpredictable. It didn't fit neatly into any one romance trope. It's sort of in the Enemies-to-Lovers zone in the first part. But then more in the realm of Forbidden Love. Not as light and funny as my fave [a:Julia Quinn|63898|Julia Quinn|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1493243934p2/63898.jpg], but I don't think funny was what CM was going for. This has some serious stuff (PTSD, abuse, class warfare).

The Duke was not super believable to me as a character, but I don't read romance for verisimilitude. He reminded me of Rapunzel, a character that always makes me wonder how someone with a horrible childhood and zero positive influences could grow up to be kind-hearted.

Minnie was also an unlikely character, but fascinating. I think the biggest disappointment of the book for me was how she ceases her scheming partway through. I really wanted 100% of the book to be her genius schemes. But some scheming is better than no scheming. ( )

Try as I might, I just could not get into this book. I kept reading, thinking it would get suddenly good on the next page, that the romance would just be a slow burn that would then have me rooting for the couple. Alas, that moment never came. This book is slow, unromantic, and so melodramatic that it gives Wuthering Heights a run for its money.

One of my favorite parts of period dramas is the secret romantic moments between the leads: the stolen glances, the furtive hand touches. So beautiful! While reading this book, it felt like Milan was trying to capture that feeling, but instead of being sweet, it came off as uninterested. The heroine Minnie doesn't give a fig about the hero, and she actively avoids flirting with him. As a result, Robert carries this romance novel on his back. He's the only one trying to advance both the romance and the plot, and he almost convinced me. Romance novels aren't known for their leads realistically falling in love, but at least it's clear they desire each other. Not the case here.

If the romance was lacking, what about the sex scenes? Also fairly boring. There is a lot of masturbation in this book, which is probably only shocking due to the fact it's never mentioned in romances, in general. As for the sex scenes themselves, the first time they have sex is all about pleasuring both partners, but after that, Minnie's desire is non-existent. While she says she enjoys the sex, Milan doesn't take any pains to have the hero pleasure her like she did for their first coupling. Usually romance novels focus on how pleasurable sex is for the heroine, but Minnie rarely had any say in what happened or where. It made the story feel very faux-woke, to me.

Finally, the conflict is so weak and the villain pops up just enough that you don't forget his name that the ending was both anti-climactic and incredibly dumb. I've thought Milan sometimes makes mountains out of molehills, and she really does here. The conflict is serious, but only because its easily preventable occurrence was never stopped by either of the leads. Truly underwhelming.

As a result, the takeaways we're left with are that men are dopes, women are smart yet tragic, and communication during sex is only important when you have the time. ( )

Review over at Nordie.wordpress.com