ARC BOOK REVIEW: A Vow of Hate by Lylah James (reviewed by Dana Hoffman)

It was good but also aggravatingly confusing at times. The main thing that threw me off throughout the entire book was the time period that this was happing in. It had this weird historical romance kind of vibe that I just couldn’t shake off at all. It is an arranged marriage, which I read in modern romance as well, however, with this one, it was actually very confusing why these people were forced to get married. His family was high up in society, but who was her family that was so important for the two to come together? There was never a clear introduction to that other than they needed to make a baby for the families to be tied by blood. Then, the girl has scars on her face and walks around with a veil on at all times. I get hiding and all that, but she was with the veil on when there were no people around. Then, after he saw her face finally, she ditched it because he had been the only one she was worried about seeing her face. But he had been gone for 6 months, and she still walked around with the veil on like some ghost looking for her Heathcliff around the castle on her island. There were also words thrown in like “rake” which again made me think of a historical romance. But they had cell phones, emails and social media accounts, so… Another thing was that the first half of the book moved soooooo slow. I thought we’d never get anywhere. There was so much back and forth, so much. What saved the whole story is the fact that there are two pretty big twists in it that I didn’t see coming and loved. However, the jump into the past, then back into the present, after the first twist didn’t feel natural. And I don’t know if I misread or what, but after they finally do the sexy times for the first time, he says he’d been a virgin? This man was in his mid 30’s, and his behavior after as far as that was not that of a beginner’s either. Very confusing.
All in all, I liked parts of the story, but didn’t love it overall.