Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Readability: 📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 (2 are close together)
Humor: A bit, yes (but there’s also quite a few darker things and I wouldn’t consider this a comedy or anything)
Perspective: Third person from both the hero and heroine
Percentage which mains are first on page together: 2%
Cliffhanger: No
Happily Ever After (HEA)/Happy For Now (HFN): Yes
Epilogue: Yes (maybe 6-8 months after the events of the book?)
Format: checked out audiobook version on Hoopla
(Descriptions found at end of my review)

Should I read in order?
I believe this is a standalone.

Basic plot:
Vladamir gains a title as a political prisoner but craves revenge. An opportunity arrives when the daughter of his enemy is found near death at his gate.

Give this a try if you want:
- Medieval time period – 879 AD
- Wessex setting
- Viking hero / and I believe Saxon heroine
- some elements of paganism versus Christianity
- widowed hero with a daughter
- celibate hero
- revenge plot
- scarred hero
- marriage of convenience
- faked consummation
- child in the story (not a huge part)
- jealous hero
- you’re okay with some minor levels of miscommunication/lack of communication
- higher steam – 5 full scenes (2 are close together though) with some rougher scenes (see details below)

My thoughts:
I went into this book with high hopes – a new to me author with Mason Lloyd (who I love) as narrator?? I was sold already.

But as I got into it, I struggled with a connection with either character. The hero is a bit of a jerk and that’s fine, I can love a jerk hero, but in this one I felt like he was a bit too volatile. I never fell for him or trusted him by the end of the book.

The sex was decent – I liked that it wasn’t your average vanilla sex I come across in histrom. It’s a bit rough and includes some bondage and anal play.

There was one scene I truly enjoyed, and it was when the heroine’s family comes to the hero’s castle and they discuss if the marriage is valid. It had me laughing and really loving both characters. I was hoping it would maintain that rhythm for me afterwards but sadly it didn’t.

I struggled with the writing style a bit too. It was written with a medieval feel, with lots of ‘me thinks’ sprinkled throughout – but then we would get some random sentences that just felt really modern. (Like how he ‘checked out her tight butt’) and it just felt a bit unbalanced?? I don’t really care about modern language used in a histrom but it was jarring to come across those lines. (What do I know, maybe ‘checked out her tight butt’ is totally historically accurate too – it just felt a bit weird!). I don’t think this would be a problem when reading because you would see the quotations, but something with the writing style would make it seem like someone was talking, but really it was just thoughts. But I wouldn’t realize this until after the thoughts were done and I was constantly kind of back playing scenes to re-see them as they were written. This is probably just a me a problem though haha (So like the hero would ask her something, and she would respond but you would find out at the end of her thoughts that it was all in her head and she didn’t actually say those things. I really think it was just a minor audio thing that won’t happen when reading)

I started getting a bit annoyed towards the ending too with the hero’s irrational behavior, the whole 24 hours to prove his innocence thing, which I thought was totally unfair...Overall I think I would read another Michelle M Pillow novel and see how I feel, but this one wasn’t a favorite for me.

Content warnings:

- Heroine is beaten and covered in carcasses while left on the hero’s doorstep
- Animal abuse from heroine’s family (a dog is kicked)
- Hero and child have scars from fire damage
- Physical abuse of heroine by betrothed and father
- Mention of slavery
- Scenes of jealousy
- Decapitation (happens in front of a child)
- Possible feelings of infidelity – the heroine implies/asks to sleep with the king to release her husband from prison – he does not accept the offer
- Suicide mentioned
- Hanging on page
- Child born in the epilogue

Author given content warnings: 

Contains graphic sexual content, adult language, and violence

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes:

 
Safe sex: 

No 

 
13% - kisses
38% - kiss
43% - kiss
56% - 🔥 kisses, fingering for her, hero masturbation (short)
58% - 🔥 kisses, fingering for her, oral for her (oral is short), doggy style sex (virginity loss for her)
74% - 🔥 kisses, rough blow job with some thrusting and hair grabbing (incomplete), skinny dipping in the lake with fingering for her, anal fingering and doggy style sex followed by anal
88% -🔥 kisses and he ties her to the bed, anal fingering and oral for her, missionary
93% - 🔥 her on top