Brides of Karadok #2

I was looking forward to this book ever since I read Roland and Eden's book where Lenora, the FMC of this book, straight up >! conspired with Oswald Vawdrey to drug her cousin, strip her naked and put her in Roland's bed (who was also drugged, iirc) to force them to marry!<.

I did not expect this to be her story.

Lenora, the most beautiful woman in Karadok, is left to die of the pox in a crypt full of dead and dying. She emerges from it alive but her legendary beauty is lost. Once a court darling, she just wants to get the hell out of there now and proposes marriage to a grumpy, surly northern knight Garman.

Now, I love me a northern knight. This guy is so deliciously grumpy but every second paragraph since meeting her he's like what's this feeling I am feeling? what's this ache in my chest? And like leave me alone but don't go too far. Get away from me but also let me hold you through your PTSD nightmares. I don't care about you but I'll rip apart the rubble you are buried under with my bare hands till they bleed to get you out. Ugh, god, it just works for me! And he is obsessed with her ass, obsessed. And when he kissed her eyelids, I swooned. 😭 And the face sitting. Holy fuck. 😳

!“What if you can’t breathe–oh!” Then I’ll die happy, he thought, moaning against her slippery, pink cunt.!<

I got a glimpse of Lenora's personality in Roland's book and it was clear that she isn't really this haughty beauty with no personality. But for some reason the author is really going for "she gained a personality after she lost her beauty" thing, idk how I feel about that. She is so resilient and determined to take her life in her own hands. I nearly threw my device down when I read her overhearing her family say she was better of dead than ugly. What the fuck. It was kinda funny but mostly hot that he's like oh, I am going to do such debauched things in bed and she just takes them in her stride and afterwards is like why did you say I wouldn't like that. I love Lenora.