I should probably start my review by saying I believe I’m not the right audience for this book.
I struggled to get interested in this book from the beginning. I’m not exactly sure why. I wasn’t crazy with Shine and her Bright from the beginning. They seemed condescending and rude. Maybe this was just them being gentry. Bright’s lover is also his valet. Even though Bright had been disowned and forced into the army along with his lover, he still uses his boyfriend as his dutiful valet. Then we find out that Bright has an Outlander in the trunk of his carriage. At first they talk about this Outlander like an IT not a person. Bright even gives Shine permission to touch him. Because’s he’s human after all. I guess Ghost is what they call Outlanders because of their pale skin. They can’t pronounce his name so they give him the name Shadow. They continue to talk about him like he’s not there even though he speaks their language.
At one point before she realizes he speaks their language she says something like “Eue, what ugly skin. It reminds me of mushrooms.” This is rich coming from her because her father was an Outlander her mother had an affair with. This makes her much paler than the others in her family. They even call her Ghostie-girl and a “joke” she finds this very hurtful. They decide to hide him in Shine’s room until her family leaves so they can quickly help him sneak him back into his country to avoid a diplomatic incident.
This is where things start to get a little weird for me. So Shine and Ghost are talking in her room and she starts changing in from of him. She asks him to pull her boots off, braid her hair, and lace her dress. First, she’s scared of him then she’s asking him braiding her hair? O.K.
So it’s at this point we start seeing that Shine and her family are very liberal sexually. I thought Shine explained earlier in the book that the fertility festival that the family comes to town for was to bless the fields. For fertile crops... I was wrong. The family is Matriarchy. Apparently an important part of this is for the woman to breed as many female children as possible and sleep with anyone who catches their eyes. OK that’s fine but I didn’t realize that was the kind of book I was reading.
By this point in the book, I was really struggling and trying hard to finish this book. Two things happened that make is retired this book to my DNF pile.
First, after the family arrives they are all hanging out in the living room smoking dream weed. They all get extremely high. Bright is having a conversation with her ..cousin or uncle (?) A lady enters who this guy doesn’t want to talk to. So as an excuse to exit the room he starts kissing Shine on her neck. He sweeps her out of the room on the pretense that they are going to go have sex. They go to his room to keep us the ruse. When they arrive at the room he’s sitting in a chair telling her about a book he recently read. While shes giggles uncontrollably (because she’s high as a kite.) on the bed while his maid bounces the bed, so passers-by think they are getting it on. *Cue blank stare*
I closed the book at 19% when Shine entered the bathhouse and walked in on a threesome. It included details on who each person was and the action they were engaged in at the time. I’m not a prude. I don’t mind a steamy love scene. Until this point in the book, it was just talking about who was good in bed and the whole pretend sex thing with her male relative. So this just shocked me! It was so out of the blue, I felt like I walked in on this scene myself. LOL This was when I realized I am not the correct audience for this book.