Thank you to Netgalley and Turner Publishing/Keylight books for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Switching POVs and timelines between Verity in 2018 and Beatrice in the 1300s, which I enjoyed in the first half but quickly became bored and just wanted to finish the novel. Be forewarned that the only positives I have are that I finished it and enjoyed the past timeline 😅

A little overly descriptive for my taste-the author clearly did her research and wanted to include everything she found. But it made the story drag and threw off the pacing, almost pulling me out 😭 I honestly started skimming especially in Verity’s chapters, this book could’ve been cut by 1/3 and nothing of substance would change.

I preferred Beatrice’s chapters and felt like we skimmed so much of her life, giving brief sentences about what’s happening spanning 5-10 years at a time. I wanted to hear more from her! I wish the minute details describing Verity’s routines and the buildings had been cut and made more space for Beatrice’s life. More balance should’ve been given to both timelines as we get a day by day look at Verity, but then we get a few years or a decade at a time for Beatrice?! Make it make sense 🙃

And actually I wish Verity was cut period, this would have been a MUCH stronger book if it focused on the past from Beatrice and Christine instead. Christine-we get two chapters from her before she meets Beatrice. Once this happens, we don’t hear from her again so I questioned what the point of that was.

The characters lacked depth maybe because the author tried to include a lot from her research without giving us any insight into the people and their motivations. For this reason I didn’t connect with a single character. The romance in the present timeline happened so quickly that it was unbelievable and felt forced. It was also problematic at times and distracted from the main plot rather than building onto it.

The ending felt rushed and surface level, I read the whole book and felt I had learned nothing. It was as if nothing stuck because it was so passed over and was more of an info dump than a cohesive novel.

Overall the novel held a lot of promise but fell flat in its execution. If it weren’t for the romance I would’ve kept this around 3 stars, but it drove me so crazy I’m dropping half a star. This is a book I should’ve loved based on the synopsis and similar concept novels I’ve read before, but sadly it’s my worst book of July 😭