I really wanted to like this book! I had high hopes for this book from the first two chapters- it was a refreshing and interesting dynamic to give two leads of a fantasy romance- but the whole "they're ugly by the standards of each others' races" thing wears thin when it keeps getting hammered in every single scene they have together. As solid and romantic as the core relationship is, this book was so slow, and the climactic action (if you can call it that) in the last two chapters is rushed as is the deneumont. The structure of every chapter was identical, and despite the writing/prose itself being better than lots of romantasy out there, this books was unfortunately tedious.