Review: Julie Anne Long’s YOU WERE MADE TO BE MINE.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own.

The pining in this one. Oh my gosh. The yearning. Sometimes (all the time) I want to read about a hero lying in his bed, wanting the heroine & wanting her to be happy but not sure about a path forward or about whether he should pursue it if there is.

For this & for a hundred other reasons, Julie Anne Long’s YOU WERE MADE TO BE MINE is fantastic.

With this upcoming release we’re back at the Grand Palace on the Thames, this time following Lady Aurelie Capet & former spymaster Christian Hawkes.

After three years in prison, Hawkes has recently been released by Aurelie’s fiancé, an Earl who says he’ll also pay Hawkes to find the missing Aurelie, who’s vanished not too long after an argument they had.

Though he hates the man, Christian accepts the job & tracks Aurelie to London & the Palace, where he soon meets her & is knocked FLAT on his gorgeous face by LOVE. But both of them have secrets.

The writing in this one—like in the others in the series—is exquisite. I mean that. You can feel every emotion, as well as the love Julie Anne Long as for her characters & for people in general, I think.

Not only do I love the main couple, I always love how JAL renders the secondary characters as well. I mean seriously, I’ve written this before but it remains true: I would like to live at the Grand Palace, amongst so many great friends & stellar drama. I think I would spend a lot of my time chuckling & saying “oh Dot,” like I did in this one—some of these passages are soo funny!

With a riveting, tender, passionate love story whispering & yelling across the pages, a story about hurt & finding someone to share that hurt with, to nurture hope with, YOU WERE MADE TO BE MINE is beautiful & luminous & if you haven’t read this series yet, please, you must.

5 ⭐️. Release date: 06/28.

CW: previous loss of family in French Revolution & the loss of other family members. Christian was betrayed & imprisoned—references to being physically abused there. Christian makes use of spymaster techniques to get secrets & info from others & at a couple of moments, they rubbed me the wrong way, especially when he uses one to get Aurelie to reveal that the man who was once her fiancé raped her. She seems relieved later—that language might even be used in the book—but while his actions might be in keeping with his characterization I wish she had revealed her confession organically, without being manipulated & emotionally strategized into it. She had already experienced such pain that I didn’t appreciate how he knowingly caused her more to get her to say it. References to physical abuse. Treason.