This story was not for me. I couldn’t connect with the characters and was not enjoying what I was reading.

I find it impossible to talk about this book without spoilers, because the way it presents certain topics has to be discussed freely and directly and has serious implications.


The opening scenes, the ball, the unfortunate glass of lemonade that marks the beginning of the downfall, everything up to the party at the Edwards' house is so promising. We get an unusual, quirky heroine who seems capable of breaking the stiff mould and her charming friend, both lively, sharp girls who share a warm, honest friendship and navigate the social waters of a small Victorian town together.


And then it all comes to pieces with a gruesome, extremely graphic, soul-shattering scene of rape. It's absolutely sickening and marks a sharp turn in the novel. In my eyes, there's only one possible way this could end that would redeem the book: Anna recovers and dedicates her life to ruining Christopher, killing him, destroying him. It's the only thing a disgusting rapist like him deserves.


What happens instead? She marries him in an attempt to protect her family and eventually falls in love with him, and he with her. Wait, what?


There is hardly anything in the depictions of these characters and their choices that's even remotely realistic. Fine, maybe their being slave to rules of etiquette and worrying what everyone would say, that's definitely a thing that held true and still holds true as a factor that influences decisions. But what of the individual and their motivations?


Is Christopher's story of vendetta against the man who seduced his mother, left her with child and then abandoned her supposed to endear him to the reader? How does a man who dedicates his life to avenging the memory of a woman then go on to hurt another woman even more? It doesn't check out!


And everything up to Daniel proposing to Anna leads us to believe she genuinely loves him and is suffering because he doesn't reciprocate. And then all of a sudden it turns out he loves her and she doesn't? It's frustrating and insults the reader!


And Lucy, Anna's oldest and dearest friend, who's with her all the time and with whom they have a practically telepathic relationship, magically moves to the sidelines after the rape? Not only does she barely react to the change in her friend, but she also doesn't see the toxic relationship between Anna and Christopher, which is evident even if you don't know that he raped her? And Anna chooses not to tell her best friend she was raped, and by a man Lucy already dislikes?


It's like the frustrations just pile up, and you end up wanting to finish the book out of sheer spite, just to see how it will end and if there's a way to kill Christopher in case Anna can't do it.


All in all, it's so much wasted potential and misguided character portrayal. I can't understand how a woman can write something like this. If the generic happy ending for a romance book is supposed to be "boy gets girl" (because girls are naturally possessions to be had), this ending is "rapist gets victim" and it frustrates me to no end. It's like the author had all the possibility to write an intelligent Victorian revenge thriller with unusual characters who stand out, but ruined everything with her "bodice ripper" fantasies. Anna was raped by Christopher and betrayed by her author.


On a side note, I found it unbelievable that this book was originally written in Italian. The English translation reads like an original and is very skillfully done. This is arguably even more unfortunate, because it presents such terrible content with such vigour and conviction.


Representation in media is everything: it's always inextricably bound to real life, to a cultural context, to a social setting, and to shaping desirable and undesirable behaviour in society. And toxic books like this one deny everything women had fought for and still fight for.

I did not write an review for my website. I didn't because this book is listed in my dnf pile. The reason is really simply why I put it down. Anna goes through abuse more than once because Christopher is a selfish individual that did not love or respect Anna and did more than use her for his means, he destroyed her reputation just because he considered her beneath him.

I couldn't read this.