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the audiobook gods have spoken (they voted on mastodon)

The pacing of the book was incredibly unbalanced. With 20% left in the audiobook, my partner and I agreed that the story hadn’t moved forward enough yet for the remaining time to allow for a satisfying wrap-up.

The amount of detail and repetitiveness in the first 80% of the book stands in glaring contrast to the ending, which contains several major plot points (what happens to Catherine, the whole trial, how much time passed, they’re alone on the island?) that were totally glossed over.

2 stars + 1 for the narrator making it fun to listen

sword fighting as foreplay 😏 I approve

@reginasbread that’s actually usefule though! This is just… repetitive

ffs how many times will she reach out her tattooed fingers and tilt Emilia’s chin up?

this narrator is doing a good job with all these characters - Judith especially is great

ready for audiobook lady pirates

I really enjoy this author’s emotive writing. The beginning was a little slow to nab my interest, but by 40% into the audiobook, I was invested and didn’t want it to end.

One thing I appreciated was the level of communication between the MCs—not too much processing to feel unnatural, but miscommunications were not overused as a tool to drive the MCs apart.

Watley is a solid narrator with a very pleasant tone, but sometimes I struggled here to differentiate the characters by their voices.

4.25 stars

Noyes pulled off an incredible piece of fiction with this book — exceeding my expectations, though she is an author whose work I always approach with high expectations.

It is written to be completely separate from Ask, Tell but if you have read that already, you’ll feel all the familiar good things as they connect to its retelling here from Rebecca’s POV.

Notes on the audiobook: Abby Craden’s performances are generally great, but something about her acting just vibes SO well with Noyes’ writing.

5 stars +++

this should have been THE story for me—the premise of childhood grudge and doctor/actress trope, but I just really struggled to get into it…all the way to the end.

might just be my mood and not the book itself, so I’m not posting a rating

1. this is erotic fiction…heavy on the sex scenes and light/absent the romance until the very end (not a complaint! it’s hot)
   
   2. for the first 85% of the book, I was unsure how they’d move from forbidden sex at every opportunity to a requisite HEA “romance” ending, but they did it!
   
   (adding an extra 1/2 star for the narration of Erin’s POV)
   
   4 stars

I enjoyed this second installment even more than the first. Very exciting and unexpected moments in the beginning and middle sections, but the last 25% dragged a bit before it picked up again.

Leak’s writing style and these characters seem tailor made for Abby Craden. Fully hooked on the series and looking forward to book three.

When I say I want a slow burn romance that makes me FEEL something, this is exactly the kind of storytelling I mean.

Every character contains multitudes and—though the book is short—the character development is excellent.

If you’ve read the fanfic this is adapted from, you should also read this book. The changes to the story were well done, but I still imagined the characters as if from the fic. Heh.

4.5 stars

If you like lady spies with mysterious past… Kathryn Hammond is your gal.

Abby Craden is arguably one of the best narrators of sapphic fiction, but her performance in this was exceptionally good.

The plot is heavy on mystery, light on the romance (though the sexual tension is there), and this book will leave you with many unanswered questions… time to check out the rest of the books in the series!