You must have been unaccustomedly well-behaved that day,” he said sounding vaguely accusatory, “else I would have notice you, to be sure. () You are not a woman to be overlooked.” Side note: I loved Oswald the most followed by Garman, Mason, Roland, and Armand with all my little heart. Aimee Ankatel, youngest daughter to the richest merchant in all Karadok, only has eyes for the heavily scarred Lord Kentigern. A ferocious competitor, her heart beats louder when she watches him compete in the field. Not one of the handsome knights of Karadok draws her admiration like he does.

Any idealistic dreams of youth Kentigern once had were lost long ago in battle when he was disfigured and blinded in one eye. His destiny was a cruel one, his homelands confiscated for his part in the Northern uprising, he ekes out a lonely nomadic existence, travelling from one tournament to another.Reason-She is a pro in writing the tiniest tidbit of life during the times and her MOC plots keep evolving with every new book. To be clear, AC is incapable of writing a bad story (seriously she's a brilliant and magnificent writer). I just didn't connect here. I ended up disliking Konrad much more than I thought I would and that affected my enjoyment severely. Generally I love men who are serious but sweet (UGH THE VAWDREY BROTHERS I miss them so much), but I found myself agreeing with Konrad that he didn't deserve Aimee. I just felt a large distance from Konrad and he didn't reach my heart like I wanted him too. We also get to know the absolute bare minimum about him. He doesn't communicate much with Amy and we don't explore his pov in depth. Seeing him blossom into a human with a personality and actually engage with other characters was also quite delicious. The dude BLOOMS in this book and the Jeffree at the end?? Omg. Best.

Now, I loved Jeffree. I’m not going to start tossing out terms but he definitely seemed like an atypical character with how he didn’t really comprehend subtle stuff and did better with straight forwardedness. This book had all those ingredients plus an awesome heroine, Aimee. She is proud and knows her value. Once she feels she is in love with the H, she concocts a perfect plan of marriage to get everyone to agree with it. He had everyone reduced to whatever qualities he could gleam from a sparse conversation and then that’s how he regarded them.but i simply cannot give Alice Coldbreath 2 stars I refuse so this remains at 3. I’m biased. I simply love her and her writing too much. All her books are hits in my books and even when I don’t like them they are better written than a majority of other things. It’s just that I *sigh* expect more given the reliable excellence. So when an AC book is just good compared to others it pales in comparison to itself/AC’s other work. Does this make sense? IDK moving on... I'm an unabashed Alice Coldbreath fan, and this new Brides of Karadok book didn't disappoint! Yay! It's less Beauty and the Beast and more "no man is an island," with a heavily scarred hero who lost his home and fortune fighting on the wrong side of a war (now 7 or so years in the past) and a wealthy merchant's daughter who falls in love with him when he acts with rare nobility upon a tournament defeat. Hero Konrad makes a few missteps along the way, but it's more because he's clueless rather than cruel, and after hurting the heroine's feelings very badly by awarding the tourney crown, with his usual cynicism, to piss off/unsettle a rival knight, he spends most of the book learning to be more considerate and loving. It's super cute! And that's where it lost me, I feel the author tried to give a bite of other couples in future books and that made the love be cut short, the lovely development I was seeing and the banter, Jesus take the wheel of my ovaries, the banter, stopped because of that, wich was disappointing. I liked Aimee and Konrad, but some of their faults wore on me a little. Aimee was young and I thought needed to mature, which only comes from experience. Konrad used his scarring and grumpy attitude to keep everyone at a distant and leaned too heavily into his persona. Both needed to face some truths about themselves, although Aimee was more caring and delicate in prompting Konrad to understand that he had friends and support, whereas he was far too blunt in pointing out some of Aimee's flaws. But they adjusted! The tokens that Aimee gave him were adorable and Konrad asking her to wear his colors again, beating himself up over his missteps was sweet. These two also had to acclimate to the marriage bed as well. Though there are lots of steamy times like the rest of the series and some sweet intimate moments involved too.

stars. I really enjoyed this story once again & I think it might be my favorite of the series. I had been hoping that this would have been released as an audiobook by now… maybe by the third read? 🤞🏻🤞🏻 I didn’t care for the reason that was chosen for him to be a virgin and it was just annoying me but it made for a pretty nice scene of how he broke his vow, that part I approved.

Anne Flosnik, Audiobook Narration Samples’s tracks

Jeffree DeCressy was such an idiot. He was so awkward and clueless, but hid that behind arrogance and grouchiness. It was endearing af. He is one of the first heroes in this series where his growth overshadowed his lady’s. His growth ‘in the sheets’ (as he calls it) was particularly good as this is also Coldbreath’s first virgin hero.