[REVIEW] THE POETICS OF PASSION - DELPHINE ROSS (ENGLISH REVIEW)

 All reviews here are purely personal opinions and do not intend to degrade or glorify the work of others. Everyone has their own reading tastes. Thank you.

Title: The Poetics of Passion

Author: Delphine Ross

Expected Publication: 25 July 2023

Pages: 316 pages

ISBN: 9798985351262

Language: English

 

BLURB

In 1872 London, a scandalous love poetess and a passionate children's book illustrator are set at odds in this sparkling enemies-to-lovers debut historical romance.

A secret identity means secret desires—and not-so-secret scandals . . .

Musa Bartham has a secret. To support her destitute family after her father’s disappearance, she’s been publishing steamy poetry under the pen name of Felicity Vita. As Felicity Vita, Musa’s scandalous books have won legions of devoted fans—including an anonymous gentleman pen pal whose letters spark unruly desires she would never ever succumb to in her orderly daily life. But when Musa’s cherished younger sister, Angela, is offered sponsorship by their aristocratic great-aunt for an advantageous marriage, Musa realizes her dangerous double life as Felicity must come to an end. Instead, she’ll write books for children.

Sebastian Atkinson is a passionate artist reduced to working nights as a printer. Though Seb is infuriated by the prim yet alluring young woman who corners him into illustrating her insipid children’s book, he can’t turn Musa away: he suspects she may be Felicity Vita, the seductive poetess with whom he’s been exchanging love letters for the past year. Egged on by his best friend, an ambitious journalist desperate for a break, Seb seeks to unmask Musa’s secret identity. But the closer Seb comes to the truth, the more Musa entices him—and the more Musa finds Seb curiously attractive and even more curiously familiar. Could he have anything to do with her anonymous gentleman pen pal?

Unable to resist each other, the two shift from enemies to lovers just as their love letters are stolen, setting Angela's future at risk. As Seb and Musa frantically come together to contain the damage before it's too late, it’s uncertain whose hearts and lives will be broken amid the most sensational scandal of all.

 

REVIEW

Thank you NetGalley and Muse Publications LLC for giving me this ARC. Here I leave my honest review for this book.

Historical is always such a hard genre for me, but to diverse my reading I tried to combine it first and here I am reading the historical romance.

When I read this book, I can’t decided how to rate this one. Despite as a historical I think this is so easy to read. Maybe because this is historical romance so the world building not really hard to develop. If you ever watch historical series like Bridgerton or other it could be easier to imagine the world they lived in.

For the characters I really love Musa, but I think she didn’t deserve her family. Her aunt and sister are too selfish. I hate to see Musa's efforts to meet the needs of her family not appreciated. What she did was none of it for her. Now that her sister wants to find a husband, Musa also has to make sacrifices and fight so they can be released from the scandalous label. But Musa didn't mind at all and wasn’t burdened with it. I love her so much!

After all, didn't everyone want a happy life?

In my opinion, the conflict mainly focused on the secret identity of Felicity Vita. The conflict is not really big and actually not really amazed me. We focused on Musa and Sebastian relationship more here and their family of course.Their relationship develop so fast. I can’t say they’re enemies actually. They have a rough encounter and with misunderstanding, that’s why they always banter with each other but yeah not really enemy. But I love their relationship after that, they slowly become attracted towards each other.

But, I can’t forgive easily what Seb done to Musa. If I were Musa, I’m going to make Seb grovel more and more. I think Musa forgive him so easy. I know she understand Seb condition and nothing really bad happen because of that. But still, I’m not too satisfied with the way Seb and Musa solve their problem.

It is so hard for me to decided how I feel after read this book. At first I hate what Seb doing to Musa and not satisfied with it. But after thinking about it, this book can make me feel what the characters feel so I satisfied with the book. With this, I decided to give rating 4/5 ⭐for this book. I’m conflicted whether excited to wait.

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