This is a barnburner of a book. It's a version of Cinderella in which our heroine, Lady Aislinn a.k.a. Ash Vincent, starts out engaged to the king's little brother Everett, who's generally a good egg, charming, wants to be a hero, and Ash cares about him...but isn't particularly sexually interested in him. She's been set up for two goals: to marry rich per her evil stepmother Seraphina, and per her grandmother on her dead mother's side, to be a member of the Elorian resistance. They all live in Soria, a country that conquered Eloria awhile back, and Soria is keeping the lone remaining Elorian prince, Verance, alive as a hostage. Rance has learned to fake being lazy and indolent and not giving a shit about anything but his dog, Puppy*, and he's supposedly best friends with Everett, which is a giant It's Complicated right there. Of course Ash develops feelings for Rance even though he can be difficult and irritating.
* note: there is one scene where one may be concerned about the dog's future well-being. The dog is fine.
The stepfamily relationship is interesting here. Even though publicly Aislinn portrays the Cinderella story that Seraphina is evil, in private to Rance, she goes to get help from her periodically and says she's not so much "evil" as "not so nice." Frankly, the more you get to know Seraphina, well, she is evil (it's notable that Seraphina used to beat Ash until one day Ash got her to stop, and they seem to have been on a better footing since then). She's ambitious as heck and has taught Ash and her fraternal twins Adelaide and Cecilie to scheme, plot, lie, pick locks, manipulate, whatever it takes to catch a rich fish. The stepsisters aren't evil, albeit all three girls have been trained in the same way and cooperate with Seraphina because they know what happens if you don't. But Ash's double dealings with attempting to get herself into a political position to help with a new treaty get complicated. Also, the world relies on a magical substance called lustre, which Ash uses to manipulate people, make Everett thinks he loves her, etc., but it's limited. She has a lot to juggle, two personalities, and her own more pointed personality keeps creeping out because Ash has spent her life in dark places and it's hard to always be sweet and innocent as Aislinn.
Overall, this was compelling. I loved the slow burn between Ash and Rance (and her growing acceptance of his dog, who originally scares her), and yet felt sympathy for Everett, who wants to be a good guy but as the plot goes on, seems to feel obligated to behave like a not-so-great one. I appreciated Ash's relationships between her stepsisters and her maid.
The ending gets shocking and rocky and explosive around 3/4 of the way through the book, which made it very hard to put down once I had to work last night, y'all. I will say that the ending of the book wraps up pretty quickly in a "so, hey, that's...it? People are okay now?" sort of way that made me blink in shock, but I suppose it works. I'm not sure if this should get a sequel or not, but things seem pretty wrapped at the end.
Four stars.