*Thank you so much to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book!*

I am so sad about my feelings towards this one. It comes as a complete surprise to me because when I read Elektra by the same author, it was an immediate five stars and I was completely in love.

The only thing I can think of when I think about this book and the primary feeling that sticks with me is just how bored I was. For some reason, this book could not hold my attention or seem to entertain me at all. There was a chapter or two at around the 40% mark which I was really invested in and thought the book would pick up again from there, but it didn’t. It was just so incredibly dull and dry, and I couldn’t bring myself to care.

The characters in here were advertised as strong, feminist women but I didn’t really pick up on that from this book. In my opinion, they didn’t really do anything of note throughout the whole book. I didn’t really connect with either of them, the only thing I enjoyed was the exploration of motherhood and how it’s not for everybody and how some women can resent their fate in that aspect. I think that was handled and depicted really well, and is not something I’ve seen a whole lot of in books. I think that was fantastic.

One thing Jennifer Saint has to be praised for is her writing - because she is a beautiful writer. She can describe any scene in the most delicate way and have me picturing the most vivid things in my mind. She’s also very real when it comes to discussing emotions in her novels, there’s always something relevant and relatable in her work that can resonate with a modern audience despite depicting a historical tale. I love her writing, I just hated this story.

I felt like we never really got a chance to connect with the characters properly here. We meet them, something happens, we skip a few months, something happens, we go forward years, new characters are chucked in, we suddenly change perspectives, we skip another decade. It all just feel so discombobulated for me that I couldn’t get along with it at all. Reading this book actually became a chore for me.

Excited to see what Saint does next, but this was disappointing.