My Review (May contain spoilers, fair warning upon reading this review so please be responsible)

The Secret Fiancee is a book I was really looking forward to. Even though the past couple books in the series have been such a disappointment, I was wanting more for this one and hoping that maybe the author had learned from how the past couple books just hasn't worked as well for her readership. So I do want to say that the first 90% of the story was superb. The romance was fun, the hero was a beta sweet hero and I really thought that this would be a win because the relationship really felt more healthy. But of course, Maura just had to ruin this book with the last 10% of the story. Now I will say that even though the hero goes bonkers in a scene, its understandable why he does. He has some past betrayal and trauma issues he just hasn't resolved so I wasn't shocked by his reaction. My issue though was how the heroine treated him. Now I get she was hurt, but the circles that she makes him jump through was very abusive for him. Now yes I do agree that he needed to do a grovel here, but what she makes him do in order for her to forgive him was more about power and manipulation than actual love. The author writes the grovel to the point where the hero is DESTROYED emotionally to the point that it literally made me sick in disgust. I am not going to justify this behavior. Quite frankly he deserved better than a woman like this. Because she knew of his past, and she should have been more understanding, and how she puts everything on him and treating him so beneath her just soured the ending for me so much that I only got to about 95% and I actually technically DNF it, I just couldn't finish it. That is how bad it was. This is why I am not picky about grovels, in fact, I would prefer to have a lighter grovel than to see this type of abuse. This is NOT the first time I have seen this from this author, and honestly I am not sure I will finish the series. I don't get the appeal when authors destroy the heroes just for the sake of having a grovel to satisfy readers. And if this grovel had been better handled, this book would have been a 5 or 6 star read.

Overall this was a disappointment. Even though the first majority of the book was pretty amazing, the ending completely was toxic and abusive in ways that can't be redeemed. ( )