I hadn’t read any of the previous books in the series. Although this doesn’t matter in terms of context, I had very little investment or interest in the “will they, won’t they?” I found this part of the story a bit of a distraction and at times the dialogue made me cringe. The main stories and mysteries are interesting but I didn’t find the “twists and turns” that exciting, probably due to lack of investment in the characters, but everything was tied up in the end which is satisfying.