Tarnished Gold
If Tracey Ellison and Winter Santiago had a baby, it would be Gold Badeaux. While Tracey and Winter are two of the baddest characters in urban fiction, I’m not sure that’s a compliment here. I usually find myself rooting for the main character, but Gold just wasn’t likable to me. Some might say she had great character development, but I disagree. Gaining a new home and career doesn’t necessarily mean growth; it’s just material. Gold remained selfish, and that made it hard for me to connect. If multiple characters, like Danaya, have to be added to convince us that your main character is a decent person, maybe she’s just not a decent person.
At 763 pages, I was expecting a conclusion, not a setup for a continuation. The length felt like a journey without a payoff.
While I appreciated the nostalgic music references, they often made the book feel stuck in the '90s rather than present day. And instead of listing every designer brand, the story could’ve focused more on building the relationship, which didn’t feel genuine enough to root for.
The end had enough of a hook to keep me curious about the next book though.