Another decent addition, concludes the relationship of Ixbaab and Tess, plus she solves whose been stealing, learn the connection between Vincent and Reza, Diane's ultimation with the ticking clock and she learns about Rafe finding the Duke.

Thanks to netgalley and serial box for the free advance arc copy.

POV – 3rd person, multi character, often omni-present
Would I read it again – Yes!
Genre – LGBT, Fantasy, Serial, Historical, Coming-of-Age, Queer
Content Warning – mild violence, sexual situations, adultery/cheating, prostitution
Orientations – MM, MF, FF



** COPY RECEIVED THROUGH NETGALLEY **



I love the world building of this series, and the talented writers who bring it all together, but I was left heartbroken by the events of Season One and I'm hopeful that Season Two will at least offer some relief from that. I'm coming straight into this, just an hour after finishing Season One, so it's all fresh in my mind. There are still the infrequent issues of editing mistakes, changes of tense that don't always make sense, as were in Season One, but the recurring issue of font change has been eliminated, which is a relief.

Because of the format Netgalley sent, or perhaps because of how Kindle interprets them, the formatting for the first half of this series of ARC's was terrible. The documents had either one or two lines then a line of gapping, repeated throughout and it wasn't only hard on the eyes, but made it more difficult to follow in terms of flow. The second half were much better formatted.

~

Episode 9: A Heart A Liability, by Tessa Gratton

★★★★☆
Pages: 43

Absolutely everything inside of me wants that room to be empty! And Diane really should have opened the door to Will's rooms, because I want that to be empty, too!
I was sad, at first, that this didn't continue the story of Rafe, Micah, and Will, but can understand why, now. It wanted us to see Diane's reaction to it all in real time. I have to congratulate the Dragon, first of all, because other than Rafe, he's the only other person who has ever proven a match for Diane and it's glorious to see! Again, we had a few more POV scenes than strictly necessary, with Ixkaab investigating the stolen chocolate, Arthur making some big decision, Tess the Hand being introspective, Vincent facing his history with Reza, and lots of Diane trying to wriggle herself out of the mess she's in.
Again, there was the issue with an unnecessary change of font.
I want two things that I'm not getting: the entire story of how Vincent and Reza met, and the story of how Florian came to know Shade and became so murderous.

Favourite Quote

“Rafe chose his way, as she chose hers, and if he died...Kaab refused to be distracted by guilt, no matter how sharply it pressed.”

Coming back to this series after a long break was surprisingly easy: this instalment works quite well on its own despite the cliffhangers that precede and follow it. But I just didn't connect to it at all, not even to the Duchess. The narrower focus on fewer characters was appreciated as it streamlined the action and made it more dynamic but there was very little emotion that the plot evoked for me, and a few scenes seem unnecessarily vague in execution. I suppose I just don't care enough about, for example, Vincent Applethorpe: he remains a cypher to me, and a device rather than a character in his own right. And in the case of Diane, there was no progress; in the case of Kaab, some, but with low impact. I only hope that it's the last snag before the season pulls to a close and delivers an ending.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for making this book available to read in exchange for an honest review.

I'd heard a ton of good things about this serial, and I unwisely chose to enter it midstream. I did not get much out of it. Many pretty people who either want to or are having sex with each other, and there's a chocolate business somewhere too. I think I came to it too late.

This seemed like an interesting read with flowing writing but it was a little disjointed for me perhaps because it was a chapter in the middle of the series.