** spoiler alert ** 
 I have...complicated feelings about this book. It didn't make me want to throw it across the room or anything but the stakes in it were weirdly distributed in terms of adding tension and I'm not 100% sure I was ever convinced about the male protag. (There was a friendship triangle from when they were kids and the stakes were entirely weighted to the third person in said friendship triangle. This super important third person had very little page time but was the person who had most to lose in the situation. It was WEIRD.) 
 Oh and I discovered that I hate the whole 'the woman changed him!!!!!!' thing. Ugh, not her job, come on. Not to mention that it was never really pointed out that he made his money on the backs of the suffering of others. That suffering, when it was represented, was shown to be contemptible. But we're supposed to pity him for losing everything gambling yet have no pity for the others who do the same? Maybe I'm asking too much, idk. I certainly didn't find him doing this the heroic act that we were supposed to think it was but I also didn't need it to be. It's weird that gambling is this addiction that it's ok to exploit. You (probably, anyway) wouldn't write a romance novel about a man who made his money in the opium trade. You certainly wouldn't consider him doing that admirable. Idk. 
 But I also really enjoyed some of it generally so idk.