Month: February 2025

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

Thrift fashionista Dez Lane doesn’t want to date Patrick Ruskin; she just wants to meet his mother, the editor-in-chief of Nouveau magazine. When he invites her to his family’s big Easter reunion at their lake retreat, she’s certain she can put up with his arrogance and fend off his advances long enough to ask Marie Caulfield-Ruskin for an internship someone with her pedigree could never nab through the regular submission route. When they arrive at the enormous mansion on an island in the center of a Georgia lake, Dez is floored―she’s never witnessed how the 1% lives before in all their ridiculous, unnecessary luxury. But once all the family members are on the island and the ferry has departed, shit gets real. For decades, the Ruskins have made their servants sign contracts that are basically indentured servitude, and with nothing to lose, the servants have decided their only route to freedom is to get rid of the Ruskins for good…

I absolutely loved the fact that Dez is just using Patrick to get to his mother and her feelings for him doesn’t change throughout the book, if anything she finds him more repugnant. It’s one thing to just have the thought of using Patrick but her commitment level and the lengths that she would go to just to get into the same room as Marie Ruskin was very entertaining to read. Having her being this morally gray character right from the start gave the book more chances to surprise us because we know that Dez is capable of pretty much anything.

I almost wish that I didn’t read the synopsis and was just surprised by what was going to happen because this was just so well done. Establishing from the start that Dez doesn’t belong to this world and how uncomfortable she already is and being unsure of how the staff are acting and not wanting to say anything because she has no precedent. Are they being super weird or is this just the norm for the uber rich? I also really enjoyed how much of a full circle plot this was despite being a shorter novel. I almost wish it was more of a fill length so we can learn more about Patrick’s family and not just finding out about them when they are about to die.

There are some truly shocking and gory moments and it didn’t shy away from describing all of the details. You really can’t help but wonder if this kind of thing is happening out there in the real world which is quite sad. I definitely found myself aligning with the staff and feel as though they are righting the wrongs this family has wrought on them throughout the years. The fact that these Ruskin men were so arrogant that they never seen this coming and got what they deserve really was the icing on the cake of this fantastic book!

⭐️4/5 stars I ate this up!