Good lord was this book overwritten! Well, at least for the first half - the author was clearly trying to affect a Jane Austen-like tone, but failed. So the prose came across as stuffy and just a bit too 'proper', for lack of a better term.

In fact, I found the entire first half of the book hard to read. The story line was a bit boring, and our heroine came off as being something of a namby pamby. So with very little incentive to carry on, I'd start reading, then put it aside... it was only thanks to a forced hotel stay that this got finished.

Happily I stuck with it, as the story does pick up towards the end. Even though the whole intrigue trope has been done many times before, it was the lift this little story needed. Interestingly the overwritten prose gives way with the plot twist - perhaps the author had more fun writing this section? Or perhaps the author cleverly dropped the overdone writing style as yet another way to bring the two main characters together? Whatever the reason I was grateful and was thus able to finish the book. ( )