*I received a copy of this book in eBook format via NetGalley in return for this review. All reviews published on Yours, Chloe are completely honest and my own, and are in now way influenced by the gifting opportunity.
Title: At First Spite
Author: Olivia Dade
Genre: Romance
Rating: ★★
Spice Level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ (Explicit Open Door)
There's a fine
line between love and hate . . .
When Athena's fiancé ends their engagement, she has no choice
but to move into the Spite House she recklessly bought him as a wedding gift.
Which is a real problem, for many reasons: the house is only ten feet wide. Her
ex's home is literally attached to hers. And Dr. Matthew Vine the Freaking
Third - the uptight, judgy jerk who convinced his younger brother to leave her
- is living on her other side, only a four-foot alley away.
If she has to see Matthew every time she looks out her
windows, she might as well have a little fun with the situation. By, say,
playing erotic audiobooks at top volume with those windows open. Unfortunately,
loathing Matthew proves more difficult than anticipated. He helps her move. He
listens. And he's kind of hot . . . ?
Matthew may not regret breaking up his brother's engagement,
but he does regret what it's done to Athena. And now he'll help her however he
can. If that means enduring nightly steamy story hours, so be it. And if that
means watching Athena through their windows a bit too often and caring about
her a bit too much. . . . well, nothing can come of it. She'll never forgive
him. Even if she did, how could he ever tell his younger brother that he wants
the very same woman he pushed him to leave?
-
At First Spite is the latest romance novel from bestselling author Olivia Dade and the first instalment of her new Harlot’s Bay series. This was my first time reading anything from this author and I was enticed by the ex’s brother and forced proximity plotline but unfortunately the story missed the mark for me.
To start with the
aspects of the story I enjoyed, I loved that Athena was a curvy FMC. It’s
always refreshing to see plus size representation within romance novels, especially
in cases like this where the character’s size was not central to the plot. The only
real references to her size where when Matthew was talking about how sexy she
was which was refreshing. There were also some interesting supporting
characters which were a nice inclusion.
I do want to also
praise the powerful portrayal of depression we have within At First Spite,
which was the highlight of the book for me. I really enjoyed how Matthew looked
after Athena through her depression (particularly the bath scene – until it was
ruined when he started to take advantage but more on that later) and it was
interesting to see both POVs through this period.
I also generally
liked the choice to make Matthew, our MMC, a virgin. I have a real love/hate
relationship with the use of any kind of virgin trope within romance novels but
this was one of the first times I’ve come across it used with the MMC instead
of the FMC so this was nice to see. Generally, it was well portrayed although
this was all lost when Athena talked about being excited to “plant her flag”.
We wouldn’t accept this if it was a MMC talking about a FMC so it shouldn’t be
acceptable here.
The primary
aspect of the story I struggled with was that our protagonist Athena felt very
immature and read more like a teenager than a woman in their late thirties.
This could also be said for her ex-fiancé Johnny. The whole premise of Athena getting
engaged to a man after just two months and then her fiancé breaking up with her
just because his brother told him to felt very immature and not something you’d
expect to see from two characters with more life experience. But it was
particularly Athena’s revenge schemes against Matthew that felt very juvenile
and made it hard to warm to her character. She also makes a lot of pop culture references
which got very tedious very quickly.
As mentioned
previously, I also had concerns about the ending to the bath scene. (Spoiler
alert – in order to discuss my concerns with this scene fully spoilers will
be necessary.) The scene starts with Matthew looking after Athena during a
depressive episode. Athena is very vulnerable in this moment as not only is she
in emotional distress, she’s also naked and being washed as she’s unable to
manage this independently. But although her POV discusses her feeling safe
with Matthew and emphasises that he’s not taking advantage of her, he kisses
her. This really feels like he is fact taking advantage of her and her
vulnerability in that moment yet it’s romanticised by the author and this really
did not sit right with me.
On the topic of
consent issues, I also want to flag the issues with the choice to play very
spicy monster audiobooks out loud for the whole town to hear. Forcing people to
hear content of a very explicit nature without consenting to it is not acceptable
and not the grand gesture Olivia Dade clearly thought it was.
I also didn’t get
on with how privileged Athena was. The premise of having our protagonist down
on her luck and struggling to make ends meet could have been really interesting
but instead we had a protagonist who could fall back on her rich parents who
could wave away any financial problems at the drop of a hat.
Overall, At First Spite was really disappointing despite featuring some promising tropes.
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