I Really Wish I Liked This More...

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Notorious by Minerva Spencer was on my TBR the moment I heard about it. I was so intrigued by the summary, and I have such a soft spot for historical romances. When I saw that it was on Amazon Prime Reading for free, I dropped everything to read it. However, I quickly realized I was not going to love it as much I so badly wanted to.

The main issue I had with the novel is that Spencer spends more time telling her readers about her characters' traits than showing us. We're told very early on that Drusilla does not want to get married, and that she spends her time donating to charities and helping those less fortunate. We never actually see anything that supports this characteristic though. For something that is supposedly such an important part of who she is, you'd think we'd see her in the act of portraying this. We're also made to believe that she is a woman who men do not want to marry due to her off-putting personality. Again, we don't really see this. All I personally gathered from Drusilla is that she loves Gabriel and always has, and is incredibly jealous of his past mistresses.

As for Gabriel, I'm really not sure I leave knowing anything about him. I know he's from Oman. I know who is family is. I know he likes having sex. But what drives him? What he enjoys doing in his free time? No clue.

In addition, Spencer chooses to leave out scenes that seem like they would have been important to the story. For example (slight spoiler here), when Drusilla decides to go and meet Gabriel's ex-mistresses. Spencer leads up to this moment, going so far as to tell us that Dru is in a hackney cab on her way to meet them. However, when Dru gets to their house, she ends the scene and doesn't really mention it again. Wouldn't this be an important scene to include? The outcome of the scene and how it was handled could have opened a whole new level of character development for Drusilla. Instead, we know it happened, but not what happened. This occurs in a couple other instances too. It seemed like Spencer was more interested in giving us banter between Drusilla and Gabriel than giving us character development.

The "villains" of the story fell flat, and, though we were told they were going to be problematic, I really didn't feel their significance until the end of the story. Even then, it felt forced.

I could go into so much more about what I found wrong with this story, but I really hate leaving negative reviews, so I'll leave the negatives at that. Potential readers, know that there is much more that I thought was wrong with this, but am choosing not to get into.

What I did like: the concept of the story. Enemies to lovers tropes are my weakness, and throw in the forced marriage and I'm sold. (Can it be considered enemies to lovers when Drusilla loved Gabriel since she met him? I don't know, but I'm going with it). Spoiler: I loved the fact that Gabriel also has a secret, illegitimate son, and that it was something the two had to overcome as a couple. I loved Gabriel's mother, and that she's so loving but also says things to her son that he wishes she wouldn't talk about. Moms with no worry for embarrassing their kids/making them uncomfortable in books are my favorite moms.

Overall, there were elements to the story that I liked, but ultimately it just wasn't the book for me. At least now I read it and it can be taken off my TBR.