I'm 30% in, and I think I'm going to DNF it. This is the first book I read by this author, and I'm now starting to wonder if she's actually a man with a woman's pen name. The book just seems dominated by the male gaze to me. For example, the first scene where the hero sees the heroine naked is completely implausible. She's apparently getting changed in the middle of the day from a dress into another dress, and she even changes her underwear and bra — for no reason — except that it allows the hero to see her totally naked. Then she just comes downstairs and makes the hero a sandwich and then does the dishes. If she had been changing for a date, I would have believed it, but her date was hours later and after washing dishes so it made no sense.

Also the way the hero first lets her know he wants her sexually mostly involves him pressing his hard-on against her as his, like, opening salvo. The whole first sex scene felt driven by his desire, and her desire was just a passenger. Add to the fact that she was too drunk to drive and got a hangover the next day — to me this was a case of lousy consent practices. And they didn't use a condom. And she regretted it the next day.

I started the book because it was on a list of romances with cinnamon roll heros from an author whose work I adore. But he is not the kind of cinnamon roll hero I'm looking for.