Having enjoyed another book by KJ Charles, I wanted to give this one another go after putting down the audiobook a few months ago. I started in print and then switched over to audio and whilst I got through it, my enthusiasm for the book had serious peaks and troughs.

Generally, I felt the plot was underwhelming and far too drawn out for a novel of that length - particularly as there was an inevitable conclusion we were hurtling towards. I have learned about myself that historical romance that involves a lot of gristle and crime isn't necessarily for me - and this book had it in spades. It was also rather convoluted at times, like the author had trapped themselves in a plot hole and was trying anything to get out.

I felt the characters didn't have much chance to evolve - even Joss stayed pretty much the same emotionally throughout, there wasn't really much personal conflict with Gareth - and Gareth was a bit of a wet blanket. It was a like a badly written straight romance at times - they just switched out the woman for Gareth. He was a real damsel in distress and it got incredibly boring. The romance between them was...fine. Not terrible, but nothing to write home about either. Truly, the first 50 pages or so are the most interesting.

Also - the narrator was...not great. Particularly for Joss's voice, which leaned far heavier into West Country than it did to Kent. And was not particularly pleasant to listen through during the smut scenes.