Gilded Cage

KJ Charles is an amazing author, so the three stars is relative to her other books and not an objective rating. That said, having read almost every book she has every published, this one is firmly my least favourite. Maybe I'm biased because it's her only straight romance, but I found that Susan's "practical" personality frustrating rather than endearing and the constant focus on the gender dynamics of the relationship prevented me from getting swept up in the romance. Plus the main characters seem to have foot fetishes, which wasn't sexy to me and struck me as an odd choice. I know people made similar criticisms about KJ Charles' female characters in Proper English, but that one at least had a good mystery plot. Which leads me to my other criticism, that I didn't really enjoy the mystery in this one either. The pacing was a little odd and there were no twists. It all resolved exactly as you would expect. This book is still an enjoyable read because of KJ Charles' usual fast-paced and witty writing style, but this is the only book of hers that I considered not finishing.