After rereading The Belle of Belgrave Square by Mimi Matthews, I found myself in a bit of regency romance mood, and ya know what this book fit the bill. I'm not usually a regency romance girlie, so I was worried that there would be lots of things that I wouldn't like, but I actually think this author pulled off everything pretty well. Was it a stunning piece of literature? No, but it was an overall enjoyable book.

Tbh, neither of our protagonists were terribly likeable at the onset of this book, but they did both grow on me. Adrian originally is kind of a dick and rushes into his scheme without really thinking about the consequences, and Lilliana appeared to be a bit of an enchanted airhead. While overall Adrian cycles between being a hero you can root for and an asshole you kind of hate, he ends up proving that he's a good person and shows true regret for his poor choices; I think it was a realistic progression of his character to have the occasional setbacks, even if they were sometimes hard to read. And it was fun to watch him truly come to love Lilliana! While he initially finding her to be a bit plain and annoying, he came to see how beautiful and wonderful she really was. I also didn't like Lilliana much at first, since she starts off being like "omg I've had a crush on Adrian since I was a little girl, I can't believe I'm going to marry him!!", which is a trope I am NOT a fan of, but she takes off her rose-colored glasses quickly enough. I needed her to be angry at Adrian, and she had plenty of moments where she was pissed off at him, so she ended up being sympathetic. (I could see some readers complaining that she was too willing to stick around even when Adrian was mean to her, but it made sense to me—what else is she supposed to do now that she's married to this guy?? might as well try to better the situation.) The other interesting character in this was Adrian's brother, Benedict; it takes a bit for you to decide if he's really good or bad, and I enjoyed the overall nuance.

I'm also glad that at the end of the book Adrian realizes that he should have been a better brother to Benedict, that he could have helped them avoid the antagonism between them, and that he hopes to repair their relationship in the future.

The plot was sweeping and engaging; there was drama and miscommunication, but it made sense and didn't feel unnecessarily contrived to keep the story going. There was one weird thing that about halfway through happened, but ultimately I do think the author pulled it off—it fit the narrative even though it wasn't the most believable thing.

So basically Adrian fucking blinds himself from an accident with a gun, and then of course he miraculously gains his eyesight a few months later. HOWEVER, it ended up introducing an interesting concept of him being blind to Lilliana's goodness while he could see, having a truer perception of her when he was blind, and then a return to their original struggles when he regains his eyesight. I was worried it would be an easy out for them to figure out their problems, but it wasn't; they had future opportunities to be mad at each other and figure out how to be better.

We do get sex scenes in this, and they were,,,,mostly fine? They started off kind of iffy (since it's a regency romance they of course had to consummate the marriage, but Adrian was nice enough about it), but then they kept having sex even though they didn't really hang out otherwise and it all got kind of weird BUT then eventually it tapered off and then only happened when it fit the narrative, so overall whatever. There was one time when Adrian kind of forced himself on her—she didn't tell him no, but she also didn't display any enthusiasm, so that was rather icky. He did end up greatly regretting it, but I don't think he ever specifically apologized for it, so that's not great. I'm usually very sensitive to SA and rape in novels, and while this obviously bugged me I didn't find it too awful or graphic; I'd advise any potential readers to just be aware of what could be triggering to them.

There were a few other oddities in this book, such as random POV switches and a weird amount of "um"s in dialogue, but overall the writing got the job done and it was easy to get swept up in the story.