It's honestly not badly written, and there were points where I genuinely did enjoy it, but there were also a few things that made me bored of the book or things that happened that made me dislike the characters/the plot.

I can't get over one of the first scenes in the book, when

Hayden literally ties up and wh/ps the protagonist for hours, and then lowkey violates her but it's excused because "if she says to stop, he will, but the entire motivation of the MC was to do whatever it takes for her kingdom, so obviously she wasn't going to tell him to stop." it made me feel super uncomfortable because a lot of authors will write dark stuff like this and then excuse it by saying "she had a choice and Lowkey liked it"

And then they immediately fall in love? I understand that it's very clearly a dark romance, but I just wasn't into it.

Breaking off of that,

Hayden's character is excused because "he doesn't have control over his anger/impulses and he feels really bad about it" but to me that's just not good enough, half of the time they spend in the book is Hayden being like "Im such a horrible person of course she's scared of you" and Karina being like "aw poor guy"

it was just frustrating to read. 

Speaking of Karina, I didn't like how she was written, at one point she literally says something along the lines of

"I'm just a spoiled rich girl"

and it's like, yes girl, you're a princess, and during the time that this book was set in, they definitely would not have said that. I still stand by that the book was fairly well written, it didn't feel like I was reading a Wattpad Fanfiction which is definitely a plus, except for when the author uses ALL CAPITAL LETTERS!! in dialogue when a character is yelling.

And also the fact that there is canonical slavery in the book,

and of course the male lead is a slave owner. But that's also excused because "he saved her and has tried to free her many times but she refuses, and she loves him like a son"

I obviously didn't finish the whole book so these are my thoughts on it up until around chapter 41.