While this book does have a lot of potential, and is a solid debut for a writer, the editor of this book needed to exercise a heavier hand.I skimmed through most of this book, stopping once in a while to actually thoroughly read certain parts - I have never skimmed through a book before, but I just kept coming across parts that really dragged on - much too much repetition of internal dialogue - I found I knew what their point would be long before they made it and was able to gloss over it without missing anything. At one point the action lagged so much I skipped around 40 pages and found I still could follow what was going on and hadn't missed much.
The author also at times switched character points of view very suddenly and I would have to double back a few lines whenever that happened. Even a paragraph break would have been helpful in transitioning between POVs.
Also, this book can't decide whether it's a romance or historical fiction. The hero only appears briefly in the first third of the book - so a romance audience will likely get bored waiting for the parts that involve the hero and heroine - so it's hard to call this a romance when there are such lengthy other plotlines going on. However, the sex in this is only something you would find in a romance. Granted, even without the sex, a certain stretch of the imagination is required in accepting some of the heroine's action/decision, but all of the sexual aspects of the plotline really through this train off course and prevented me for seeing it as historical fiction. Therefore, I think both audiences will be left wanting.
There are some strong bits of writing throughout the book though and I did find certain parts interesting/entertaining, but essentially, I had high hopes for this book and was disappointed.
