Man, this started out so promising and then just completely tanked. I'm bummed about it, though I did like Joanna Shupe's writing and the setting so I'd like to read others from her in this series. But the character development and the conflicts were completely out of control, and I ultimately didn't believe that they would actually stay together, or if they did that it wouldn't be happily. So not super successful as a romance for me, unfortunately.

This book is set in 1895 in New York and Newport, which is very du jour right now with The Gilded Age recently having premiered from Julian Fellowes (of Downton Abbey fame). Like many others, I've fallen in love with it, and this also felt at the beginning to me like a cross between that and Anne of Green Gables, the play between Anne and Gilbert once they got over their extreme enemies phase. So I was eating it up. We meet Harrison, the second son of a wealthy family who was disowned by his father when Harrison caught his dad sexually assaulting one of the maids and he dared to speak up about it. He's been in Paris for the past three years making his own fortune, all with the goal of returning and ruining his cold, calculating, unfeeling family. He's also coming back to claim the heart of his childhood best friend, Maddie. His plans are a bit dashed when he returns to find her hurt by his leaving without even saying goodbye and not a letter in the meantime—oh, and she's basically engaged to a Duke. In order to get his plans back on track, Harrison convinces Maddie to host a weekend with all of her most eligible friends, pretending that he's looking for a bride, but with the secret scheme of stealing her away from the Duke. So I was thinking, a good mix of two of my favourite stories, plus a bit of friends to lovers with a period of estrangement in between? Catnip.

Everything was going well until about 200 pages. Did I love the deceit of having Maddie put together a weekend, and bringing girls who think they're going to be genuinely having an opportunity to make a match with a handsome, eligible bachelor? No. Did I like how much Maddie and Harrison seemed to know each other? Yes, that was fun. But at that 200 mark, Harrison and Maddie are spotted by one of the mothers of the other girls, coming in from the rain and kissing—already shouldn't have happened because Maddie had just accepted the Duke's betrothal offer—and the next morning, her father calls her into his office, the Duke begs off, and Harrison refuses to say that he didn't "compromise her" (aka they didn't do the deed) so her father forces them to get married. It was frustrating because Harrison had made her say that she wanted something between them before he would kiss her, but then is totally fine with a compulsory marriage? He's completely unapologetic about it, because he knows that she'll come to see that it's what's right. There is virtually no grovel at all and they just fall into bed together, never actually addressing this HUGE conflict.

And that sets the tone for the entire rest of the book. He constantly makes choices without her or is keeping secrets about his plans, then she finds out not by him telling her but through other means. And she tells him they can't build a relationship if he can't trust her and consult her and doesn't care about what she wants and he doesn't listen to her. And, like a child, he basically responds, "I guess I'll just die then," rather than actually listening to her concerns about a marriage she is making a go of BUT DIDN'T ACTUALLY WANT AND WAS FORCED INTO. He's super dismissive of her, and assumes that he knows best. In many romances, I think a dual POV does wonders, but in this case, I hated being in Harrison's head because he's completely clueless and selfish, borderline delusional, and there's very little redeemable about him. In fact, there was little character development of either of them beyond the little snippets of their past friendship that we get and Harrison's vendetta against his family and Maddie's love of tennis.

There's even a final moment where he agrees to separate, and his last act before fleeing the country  is to go to the Duke that Maddie was supposed to marry and be like, "she's all yours, bro." And Maddie again is like, "Why would he do that? Without talking to me. That's not what I want. He thinks he knows what's best" etc. etc. And then there's GASLIGHTING from her friends, being like, "pobody's nerfect" and it's not just a matter of someone not being perfect, this is a person who has literally, not once, shown her enough respect as a person—and a person who is allegedly his best friend, at that—of having an honest discussion with her and including her in a decision or his life at all. And then SHE apologizes, when she chases after him. I truly cannot. Inexcusable. So again, didn't believe this couple would stay together, and if they did, they shouldn't have. Girl, RUN.