Almost all of this book I wasn’t enjoying it from a craft perspective. This book simply doesn’t work on its own. 

I am aware of the reader's note at the beginning and yes I read it, but it excuses the book just as much as saying "no offense" before insulting someone does. Also, it only suggests reading Twisted Love before this, but if you don't read it there's no point in reading this. If you don't know what I mean, the first huge chunk of this book is set during the same time as Twisted Love, and instead of telling the story normally, it just glosses over certain parts if they were already told in TL. *TL Spoilers* Like the kidnapping scene taking up all of a page and a half in this one? How lame that was important!

Another thing that does not stop once we get past part one is the egregious time skips. They completely ruin the development of this romance. Within a paragraph there will literally be a time jump and all of a sudden the characters are closer. Hey, I didn't get to see that! It is the laziest way to write a romance, which is insane because Ana Huang is typically good at writing romantic developments from the other books I've read from her. In my opinion, this style would have been better had it been a contemporary fiction and not a romance, but there just wasn't enough there for me to say to put the romance on the back burner.

Oh boy should I have dnf'd once I realized how much these time skips weren't working for me........

*SPOILERS*

....... because I wouldn't have had to learn that they are fucking cousins!!!!! What the hell is this??? I take a look at this high average and these reviews talking about how Rhys and Bridget are the favorite couple in the series and I feel insane. You guys are gaslighting me! "We're cousins but here's a loophole" is NOT doing what you think it's doing! Seek help if you liked this.