Oof, this is a mess. A certain amount of bad decision making is to be expected, but it feels like the characters don't have even the vaguest sense of their own priorities or willingness to actualize them. Certain plot points are sort of pulled out of thin air in ways that feel unbelievable and unearned. I wanted to love it because, yes, give me queer messy drama but this was messy in a way that wasn't interesting.

Spoilers below
*
**
***
****
*****
******
*******

I don't get why when the poison didn't work, Luca didn't just find another way to kill Nicolas. Or at least talk about why she's not going to do that! Instead it's like "oh Sabine failed to poison Nicolas" and then the book moves on to Luca abdicating. And then, somehow, however much later the poison kills Tiro instead? I can handle Luca and Touraine not being able to figure out how to interact with each other, that's some reasonable messiness, but I need the political intrigue to be intriguing and it just fell flat over and over again.