This was the same as the previous two in this series. Such high expectations and such a large letdown. No one's fault but my own here. I'm just a huge sucker for reimaginings, especially the ones that are being redone in this series. I just keep hoping I'm going to enjoy them more, but (kudos to the author) this series is very consistent.

I wish that this book had actual trials to prove the mate bond. I really liked the plot here. The prison where everyone loses their memories, paired with the evil woman who makes a deal. The trials! Oh, am I ever a sucker for a book with trials! But… These trials seemed to be all sex and orgies. Those are not the kind of trials I am into.  We did eventually move past that and into more life-threatening trials, which I enjoyed thoroughly. 

This series is very, very smut heavy, and this novella stayed true to the series. Considering Lir couldn't even remember Louisa, the author did a good job at finding a way to make it smut heavy without Lir straying outside the marriage. 

I'll say this, I don't go for smut. So, I do tend to skip those parts, and there was enough plot to this one that I was interested enough to keep going, and there was actually still a story for me to read. (In comparison to book one, where if you skipped the smut, there was basically no story at all).