I don't know what has happened with this author. Her books used to be great. Maybe she changed editor? Now they have a huge chunk of entirely unnecessary back story at the front. Almost half this book is pointless. It could have been summarised in a throwaway line - or the back story discovered as you go through, to give some suspense via gradual disclosure. They say with romances you should start the book with your hero and heroine meeting up as soon as possible, because thats what the reader is interested in, and you should want them to be interested. Well, I was bored for a lot of this and didn't care for the heroine. The only reason I kept going is because I knew the author used to write better books than this. If you keep going there is good characterisation and plotting and you do start to like the heroine a bit, but its a bit late to build a relationship with the hero by then and likeisay, I didn't have much goodwill left. ( )