This book is written beautifully. The prose is magnetic, Smith knows the craft of writing from the inside out, that much is clear. And to fans of his original book, to which this is a prequel to Mungo St John’s original trysts in a historical United States, this book may be very appealing for the writing and character alone. However, I found the descriptions of slave brutality, specifically to women, to be a little too gratuitous to my tastes and I found the protagonist, a slave owner, to be inherently unlikable. I can definitely see where Mungo is meant to be a man you love and hate due to his sharp personality and his place in the world as a slave owner, but I could personally not find him to be a very redeeming character due to the nature of his “job” and his clear womanizing ways. And I do not find a relationship built on a clear power dynamic, a slave and slave owner, to be a healthy one I would like to read about. Had I fully understood the nature of Mungo and his relationship to Camilla, I probably would not have picked this up, but that is my own fault for not fully understanding the nature of this story. This book is redeemed by the clear love of this series by fans and the beautiful writing, but it is not for me.