I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review 
 Is this book a bit over dramatic and soap opera-y at time? Yes. Despite that does it still hit on some of my favorite tropes? Yes! Did I absolutely love it? Y E S ! 
 Ok, just a few points I want to touch on in this review: 
 I feel like the beginning of the story kind of sets up a wrong expectation for what you're going to get in the rest of the book. Mainly that one of the main characters blows the other one like immediately after meeting him so you're sitting there thinking 'ok this is going to be an erotica book with like a side of half-baked plot thrown in there'. But really that's the most explicit thing that happens in the entire book and it's in the first couple of chapters. I mean they mention having sex later in the book but it's always 'fade to black' stuff, so really I feel like it would have been better to cut/change that scene in the beginning. Especially since I see a few reviews on here of people not finishing the book solely based on that. 
 Secondly, I really like how the author included different Japanese and Korean traditions in the novel as well as some history about Kyoto and the conflict between Korea and Japan. It was fun to read about and it shows that she actually did some research. You can always tell when authors just set their stories in Japan because it's 'exotic' or because they just watched too much anime as a teenager but haven't actually done any cultural research, but this is not one of those books. I'm sure the mob stuff has been fudged in several places, but to me that's acceptable to heighten the drama of the story because I refuse to believe that real life yakuza and Korean mob people are this incompetent lol 
 But I think the thing I loved most about it was the ending. (view spoiler)[Listen I know one of my status updates on this was literally 'don't hurt my sinnamon rolls' but despite that I absolutely LOVE an unhappy ending! And most authors are too timid to take that route. I mean up til about the 75% mark I was still going 'maybe they can actually be happy somehow' but then Saehyun killed Nao's dad and cut out his eyes !!! and that was pretty much the end of that. It would have been completely illogical for Nao to actually run away with him at that point and I'm sure several authors would have wrote it like that anyway. So kudos to Amy for having the guts to end her 'romance' story with one of the guys killing the other one. Also I love the like 'killer turned pacifist turned back to killer' trope so that was a perfect ending for me. I can't wait to see what Nao does in the sequel! (hide spoiler)]