I really agree: Here we have a bunch of rich entitled European types, and a dark skinned woman with an hispanic name, who comes from a lower class background (he refers to her as having been "unrefined" early on in the story). She is the only nasty, vindictive, and psychopathic character in the story. The author, a British woman of obvious caucasian descent, clearly goes out of her way to make Tracy despicable and irredeemable. Whether this was subconscious or not on the author's part doesn't matter; it still does more than hint at an ingrained prejudice against non-white people. She is also the author that had an ML start to slap his mistress when she told him she was pregnant in the book, "A Question of Pride," which doesn't really make me feel that I share any values with her. Of course, at the same time, the rich, aristocratic, entitled, and superlatively white ML and FL are both as dumb as a box of rocks, so perhaps she's subconsciously telling us that white people are all stupid!
I cringed so hard when he called her unrefined and acted as if she was a doll he created. But yeah, I definitely felt t the underlying bias for caucasians and europeans, but considering Harlequinns' only either fetishises or antagonises minority cultures, I can't say I'm surprised. Also I didn't know this author had another story in which the ML gets too comfortable slapping woman. Disgusting!
Dude, why did basically made being poor as untrustworthy as if it's a personality trait? Rich people are the ones ruining the world. The 'bad guy' was also the only person with ethnic features and latinx name. I'm sure this was subconscious, or at least I hope.