Ana María and the Fox

This book pissed me off. It had so much promise. The character descriptions and what they believed in and were working towards was let down by the way they were written. This is a romance book, and while I appreciated all of the SAT level word choices thrown about, where was the story? Not a single squee moment, no tension, no banter, not a single humorous moment in the entire book, and then to go from nothing to married and “my little wife” with the cringiest spice scenes I've read in a while, no thanks. (Her beautiful nub...

A tender historical romance from a unique perspective.

The romance is sweet, the trio of sisters are fierce and intelligent, and the suspense towards the end was a high point for me. It was an incredibly quick read that let me get swept along with it.

I did find it to be a bit of a slow start and I found myself wishing for more conflict. The relationship between the sisters is supposed to be strained and grow stronger throughout the book, but I felt like they resolved their issues fairly early on. The characters are charming, and most have clearly defined story arcs, but their epiphanies often fell flat to me. They were mostly shown through dialogue without actions to back them up.

The majority of the novel is from Ana Maria and Gideon's perspectives, aside from a small part of one chapter that switches to her sister. I assume she's the focus of the next book but it was jarring to have her perspective added where it was.

There are Spanish phrases throughout that I could understand with my few years of Spanish classes, but someone who isn't familiar probably wouldn't. There's no context or translation given with them. It doesn't affect the reader's ability to follow the plot, but I did find the phrases I didn't know to be distracting.

Overall, I'd recommend this for anyone who enjoys historical romance but wishes there was more diversity. The sisters are independent, bright, capable women, and their status as outsiders allows them space to have more modern opinions than one would often find in a book like this.