I’ve waited until I was done with the trilogy to review these books, to do a sort of overall review of the whole series and then an individual one. Because I do think this should be read as a trilogy even though they appear to be your typical stand-alone romances that share a world but can still be read on their own or out of order, this series has an strong overarching plot that builds up with a climax at the end of the third book that would make little sense without the other ones (or not as much), and with a lesser emotional impact for not knowing all the characters properly. There’s a main couple for each book with shared POVs but each book becomes more of an ensemble cast (with the third book couple having main supporting roles in the second book, and all couples + friends being very involved in the third). As someone who isn’t a lot into romances (or at least is very picky about them) this really is what won me over with this series. That and a good overarching magical mystery plot.

OVERALL REVIEW (scroll on to get the review for this book in particular): I *really* enjoyed the worldbuilding in this. I think Marske has an interesting magic system that’s both straightforward and easy to understand but whimsical and, well, magical in a way that was really pleasing to me. I especially liked the magic surrounding estates and the land, and how magicians would pledge themselves to their houses and lands and how those pacts and contracts would influence things. (trying not to spoil too much). Calling the way they would build spells between their cradling was a clever shortcut of being able to describe the magic without… having to constantly describe it in complicated ways. I also loved just the overarching plot in general, the mystery over the Last Contract, each new pieces of magic—seers, mediums, the fey—being added to it over the series to be used in the final conflict/climax of the series. I think the ending is a little messy and while I actually enjoyed a lot of what the author did with it, I did think she left a few things unanswered and perhaps a few messy holes and aftermath that she simply avoided by ending the series. Without spoiling things too much, the characters had a plan, things go awry as they are wont to do, and part of me wishes they could have gone with that plan all along, though I think what she did instead was also interesting.

I think overall, Marske had a very strong grip on her world and her characters. Her writing was solid and I enjoyed how well she knew her characters that you’d get distinctive visions of them through other character’s eyes. Their actions and choices always made sense to me based on what was built up.

One disappointment is that this series is VERY sexually explicit. Each book contain several long explicit sex scenes, and while I am no prude and I have read my share of porn AND I think the author is actually adept at writing it, I just found that I… didn’t care much for it. Used to be a time where it would have enhanced my reading experience, but now it just felt like it kept slowing down the pace of a plot I wanted to go back to, even though they did bring characterization and purpose to the relationships. This is more a me thing, than a book thing, I guess. It also means that I can never recommend this series to people who I don’t know have read queer erotica or explicit fanfiction before even if I know they would enjoy the romances and magical plot haha One could just skip them I guess.

THIS BOOK REVIEW: Perhaps the weaker book of the trilogy because it is a bridge book between first and last (as often second books are unfortunately) it wasn’t weaker enough for me to give it a lower rating because I thoroughly enjoyed it all the same. I appreciated that out of three books, one of them was f/f for one, but also that the f/f relationship was treated with the same regard as the other two m/m (which isn’t always the case), especially when it came to how complex the characters are—I really liked Maud and Violet—and the sexually explicit scenes and general horniness (there was none of that annoying thing done where female characters are softer and gentler and less horny and more profound etc). They were treated like normal women with normal desires and I really appreciated that. I especially loved Maud, who was an interesting combination of naive and stubborn and insecure and forceful, and how she turned the things she learned from her mother from something selfish and self-aggrandising into something that she could use to help others, especially Robin (and eventually Violet).

I like a limited location (I’m a big fan of mysteries that take place in a manor, for example), and I think the boat setting worked well for me here, but it did get repetitive in the middle a little with Maud and Violet and the gang going out onto the boat to try and find clues to the murder and then coming back to their cabin to talk about it. It’s always hard for me to buy into a romance that develops over a really short amount of time (in this case, 6 days) but it seemed to me that Marske was very aware of this and did her best to acknowledge that and make it work with her characters and their circumstances. It almost completely worked for me, which is more than almost all other romances I’ve read with a short setup like it, so I was very pleased with that. This book also introduces Lord Hawthorn and Alan Ross—the couple of the third book—as important and present side characters, and unfortunately the knowledge that their story was to come, and their antagonistic relationship made me really curious about them, and made me wish a little too much that this book was over so I could get to that one. That said, there’s a lot of Maud and Violet in the third book and I was really happy to see them again, and in such prominent roles that I think it says something about how much I liked them here.