You’re as pale as a sea-wraith and not nearly as like to lure a man to his doom, if you catch my meaning.

This was a bit silly, highly cliche, and mostly entertaining. I had a bit of trouble  wrapping my mind around the concept of Goddess-blessed, and I don’t think I’m very comfortable with what I’ve groked of it. I do realize this bit of worldbuilding basically only exists to make gay marriage possible in this Regency-inspired setting and that it’s more self-indulgent fluff than a deep exploration of how this all would affect society. But, idk, I think I wanted just a little more thoroughness or seriousness to the worldbuilding.

The story itself is a bit rushed and revolves around archetypes and tropes that are probably familiar to every m/f historical romance reader, except made queer this time. Owen is the sheltered blushing virgin whose world turns upside down when the brothers Drake move into his small town. Tom is the bad, rakish brother who first utterly charms Owen, then breaks his heart. Arthur is the good, serious, reliable brother who, after said heartbreak transpires, offers to marry Owen in Tom’s place to save his reputation. (It is rather unclear how Owen’s reputation would suffer or what would happen if he didn’t get married, but hey, we’re here shoehorning a man into the stereotypical female role because “a goddess said so,“ and all of that without actually discussing or questioning those gender roles in any meaningful way… sorry, yeah, I’m getting more and more underwhelmed by this worldbuilding as I think about it, lol). What ensues is comprised of lots of drama, lots of sex, and an eventual happy ending.

There were some nice descriptions and some heartfelt dialogue scenes. I actually really liked Arthur, and I enjoyed the complexity in the relationship between the two brothers, although I wish it was dug deeper into. Owen had too little personality for most of the story for me to care about him, but there were some nice moments when he started trying to get more agency and recognizing how his low self-worth impacted him. The spice was spicy. The feels were appropriately dramatic. I guess it was too shallow and stereotypical for my current tastes, but it’s definitely got its moments.