The thing about Evan was that he was much nicer and more respectful than most of Cole's leads, EXCEPT for the torture expert thing, which, again, was an interesting choice! idk, I feel like there's a worthwhile discussion to be had about whether you can have a redeemable torturer; sophia_sol felt strongly that she missed the mark here here and while I respected the attempt and thought the effort made the book was more interesting than many other romance novels, overall I tend to agree that it didn't quite land.

The asshole romance novel hero has a long and storied pedigree; without having done an exhaustive study, I suspect that it's a convergence of a.) Beauty and the Beast tropes (he's awful, but I'm the one who can change him!) and b.) the double standards that meant that in early days of romance it was dicey to have heroines pursue sex in novels while still registering the appropriate purity levels, which meant they had to be compelled or pressured into it if you wanted that sex scene at all, which meant an asshole hero ....

There's also probably some lingering legacy from the Gothic genre, where the twist conventions inevitably state that the guy who looks like an asshole is the misunderstood hero, and the guy who seems friendly and pleasant is the villain you should beware!