Midnight with the Devil (Unlikely Heroes, #1) by Emma Castle Review

This is a spoiler-free review!

Diana makes a deal with the Devil -- literally. In order to give her father a second chance at life, she agrees to a three month contract with Lucien Star, the Devil himself, in order to save his fate. And the price? Spend every Friday night with Lucien doing whatever he asks from her -- in my opinion, a pretty sweet deal.

This is a relatively quick read, and I managed to read the entire book in just under an hour and a half. The pacing is maintained throughout the story and the author does not linger on trivial plot points but rather cuts right to the chase in order to develop the story. That being said, I do think there was room for some more character development for Diana and Lucien -- we flew through the story so quickly, it felt as though that we as readers were just getting to know them when the story ends.

The book was giving major Lucifer television show vibes, and I am still up in the air if I actually enjoyed the similarities -- he owns a nightclub and is ridiculously handsome and suave. I am not a super fan of insta-love stories (I am an enemies to lovers girl at heart), so the extremely quick progression of their relationship was not really my cup of tea. Diana's characterization was a little two-dimensional in the sense that she just really did not experience any type of development besides wanting to be with Lucien, which is not exactly a personality trait.

I wish the author spent more time actually exploring angels and the paranormal aspect of the story. It had the basic backbone of Lucifer being a fallen angel and a few well-known angels making their appearance throughout the book, but other than the occasional mention from a side character, the paranormal focus was left in the dust in order to make room for Diana and Lucien's romance. I expected the book to be a lot darker based off of its summary, and it just was not giving what it should have been -- I would go far enough to say that this was tamer than some new adult novels that I have read.

Diana and Lucien have this instant attraction towards one another, and I was having a pretty fun time reading about their growing relationship and both of their internal struggles of coming to terms with what they were feeling. The further the story went on, the more it read as their relationship really only developing in order to further a particular plot point that I will not spoil, which made the relationship cheapen in my eyes. 

For someone who is literally supposed to be the devil, Lucien was a pretty chill guy and did not give off scary or powerful vibes -- he felt more like a PG-13 version of the devil that for some reason had a solid moral compass. I expected a lot more debauchery than what we were given in the story and the lack of it made me start to lose interest about halfway through.

Honestly, I did not love the ending of this book. I was really hoping that it would go in a certain direction, and in the last pages it really took a turn that I personally felt undid a lot of what the story was working towards. Maybe I expected too much from this book, but I genuinely thought it was working towards a decent ending (at least my version of a decent ending) and ended up pretty disappointed.

If you are looking for a slightly spicy quick read with a touch of fantasy, Midnight with the Devil may be the perfect read for you, especially if you are looking for an arrangement romance.

You can add Midnight with the Devil on Goodreads now, and follow the author to stay up to date on releases and publications.

You can catch up with me and my current reads by friending me on Goodreads and following this blog, my Twitter, and my Instagram in order to stay up-to-date with any reviews, blog tours, and more!

A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes, #2) by Sabaa Tahir Review

This is a spoiler-free review! The version I am reading is an ARC -- any changes made for the final publication are not reflected in this review.

I read An Ember in the Ashes eight years ago, and to say that I remember about four main plot points from that book is giving myself the benefit of the doubt. From what I did recall from the first book, I was able to piece together what the characters were dealing with and what was in store for them after the ending. 

To be completely honest, this book has been haunting my book shelf since 2016 and I finally caved in to read it because I could not take it any longer. I cannot for the life of me remember why I gave the first book five stars, because from what I do remember, I did not have an attachment to any particular character, but hey, I was in high school at the time, and any young adult fantasy was right up my alley back then.

I will say that I did really enjoy the world that this series is set in, and as someone who finds the Roman Empire fascinating, the author does an excellent job incorporating this fantasy and dystopia together in an ancient setting. Tahir really builds into the status of the world's citizens and Empire, and the dynamic between each class of people is heavily implicated in the way that their society operates. From a young adult book perspective, it is one of the more advanced societies in the sense that the balance between ruling and controlling continues to titer a fine line while the characters definitely go through more mature themes compared to other young adult series. The politics really stood out to me and were probably the most interesting part of the book, as we were constantly in a state of development and potential war throughout the book.

Helene was really grinding my gears for nearly the entire book -- we slowly see her decent from friend to foe as the story goes on, and with the added bonus of having her perspective, the reader has a front row seat to every moral dilemma that plagues her decision-making at every turn. She is certainly a complex character that severely needed some development, but boy oh boy was she taking agitation to a completely new level for me. For someone who is supposed to be an excellent strategist and intelligent, her common sense flew out the window and never came back.

Laia and Elias... now I know they had a little something-something going on, but to be completely honest, the majority of the book had their relationship screaming platonic to me, or even just a whisper of romantic tension between the two. Perhaps it was due to the romance being more of a subplot rather than a focal point, but there were moments where it felt as though their romance was being forced in one chapter and then completely overlooked the next. 

Laia has some big dumb moments that made me want to shove my hands into the pages and give her a good shake. She seems to believe that people can change way too easily, and is the reason for a number of things to go wrong in her plans because of her easily trusting others. Same thing goes for our leading man Elias, who seems to throw logic out the door in exchange for a plan that has no backup about 90% of the time in an effort to woo Laia by doing the bare minimum or straight up disappearing without telling anyone what he is up to.

The twists and turns were to be as expected, and there were maybe two instances that I was actually surprised that something happened to some of the characters. Take that with a grain of salt, as it was easy to piece together the next plot device if you were really cataloguing every move the characters made. That being said, the villains lowkey slayed in this book -- they are nasty and ruthless, and just a tiny bit hilarious in the sense that it basically felt as though they were putting on performances the entire book. 

I am still up in the air on whether or not I will continue on with this series -- the world-building is honestly the best part, so I may have to carry on and see it through to the end. If you are looking for fantasy with romance as a subplot, this is definitely your speed.

 

You can add A Torch Against the Night and the rest of the series on Goodreads now, and follow the author to stay up to date on releases and publications.

You can catch up with me and my current reads by friending me on Goodreads and following this blog, my Twitter, and my Instagram in order to stay up-to-date with any reviews, blog tours, and more!

It's Our Secret by Willow Winters Review

This is a spoiler-free review! You can read my review of A Single Glance on my blog, here.

I had such a great time reading Winters's first installment of the Irresistible Attraction series, so when I saw that It's Our Secret was available for free on iBooks, I knew I had to read it, especially since I was in the mood to read a stand alone. The bickering between Dean and Allie was *chef's kiss* and very much appropriate for college students, it did not seem overly childish or too mature for their age. And with the knowledge that they were once involved with one another, it definitely adds on to the complexity of their characters as we try to figure both of them out as the story goes on.

Compared to the only other book by Willow Winters I have read, I would say that It's Our Secret is definitely on the spicier side of her work. This is new adult, but it really does read more so like an adult novel in the sense that I think the dynamic between Dean and Allie would have worked better if they had already graduated college, rather than still be students.

I do have to say that Dean and Allie's relationship definitely went from 0 to 100 very quick, so much so that I felt as if it was done over the course of a nine page chapter, and then all of a sudden they were fooling around with one another. Since the book is on the shorter side, I should have expected some quick revelations, but it just was not having the pace that I expected. 

There is a ton of mystery surrounding Allie and her past, especially when it comes to her self confidence and the way that she chooses to present herself to people. Dean's backstory is more fleshed out from the beginning and it makes the reader more interested in his character than in Allie, at least in my opinion. We really dive deep into Allie's past as the story approaches the third act, and it definitely adds much needed insight on her character and on the choices she makes.

The chapters are super short, which makes the story fly by so fast that at some points I was not even sure if I was processing what was on the page before the point of view changed or we were somewhere else in the story. Allie's emotions are all over the place and I felt like I was going to get whiplash from the amount of times she would change her mind about Dean or about the way she felt about anything that became an obstacle for their forming relationship.

Allie has a death wish like girl what in the world where you thinking??? She really saw a potentially dangerous situation and said yes, this is exactly the plan I need to finally get closure. Girl be so serious for two seconds and think about the hundreds of ways things could go wrong before just walking in blind and hoping for the best, because that clearly worked the last time. I was truly perplexed on how she thought what she was doing was going to end up going the way that she wanted it to, without any repercussions. 

I am still confused on what exactly the genre for this book was supposed to be -- romantic thriller? Romance with a hint of suspense? Contemporary? Honestly even after finishing the book I am a loss for how to categorize it without leaving out some of the aspects of the story. It had a strong beginning but then slowly became a touch choppy as we approached the third act, which felt as if it flew by, and then we were at the end.

You can add It's Our Secret on Goodreads now, and follow the author to stay up to date on releases and publications.

You can catch up with me and my current reads by friending me on Goodreads and following this blog, my Twitter, and my Instagram in order to stay up-to-date with any reviews, blog tours, and more!

Forever Only Once (Promise Me, #1) by Carrie Ann Ryan Review

This is a spoiler-free review!

I downloaded this on Stuff Your Kindle Day and am finally making my way through my digital TBR pile as I shamelessly continue to avoid my physical one. This book was exactly what I needed to get me into a reading frenzy for the second half of this month.

Hazel and Cross have an accidental meeting after the people they were supposed to meet one night don't show up, and they hit it off. After years of not being in a serious relationship, the both of them are finally opening up to the idea of getting back out there and finding someone, even if they need other people in their lives to give them a push. Hazel's friend group and Cross's siblings really compliment their characters in the sense that they both have these amazing support systems in place, which you usually don't get to see a lot of from both leads.

All of the supporting characters really add on to Hazel and Cross's personal lives and their actual relationship as it develops. You can tell that the author really wanted to have these characters play decent roles when it came to forming bonds between themselves, and it worked out really well. If the story was written without Hazel's group of friends and Cross's numerous siblings, I do not think it would have read the same way or even ended the way that it did. I loved the meet-cute that Hazel and Cross had, as well as the general tone of their developing relationship throughout the book.

The author does an excellent job in building Hazel and Cross's backstories for us, with Hazel's having this aura of mystery while Cross has a sense of protectiveness when it comes to the people in his life. You can tell that Hazel is perfectly fine in the bubble that she has created for herself with her job as a mathematics professor and her close knit group of friends who are essentially her family. I found myself really drawn to this story as I kept making my way through the chapters, the characters are captivating and the sex scenes do not overpower the overall story. The more spicier scenes were pretty well done and were spaced out enough that the book was not just straight up smut, which is kind of what I had originally expected when I first downloaded the book, and I am honestly glad it did not turn out the way I thought it was headed.

I was eating this book UP like it was a seven course meal -- I literally read 84% of the book on the first day that I started it and had to force myself to put it down because I was about to finish the whole thing in basically one sitting and needed to collect my thought. I absolutely loved pretty much everything in this book -- the relationship development between Hazel and Cross was *chef's kiss* and their individual character arcs worked so well for them. 

The suspense aspect to the contemporary romance genre of this book really was the icing on the cake for me -- the first half of the book is very meet-cute and new relationships, and then it slowly turns into this suspenseful play of feeling like someone is watching you just around the corner. Once the author really dove into Hazel's past, the tone of the book changes and drives the plot forward into a thriller. I honestly was having the time of my life reading this book -- it is a super quick read that will have the reader on the edge of their seat wanting more.

This was such a quick and fun read -- I will definitely be continuing on with this series, and I can't wait to see what the story has in store for the rest of Hazel's friends and Cross's siblings. I would recommend this book to fans of interconnected stand alones and for those on the hunt for a romance book with a bit of edge.

You can add Forever Only Once on Goodreads now, and follow the author to stay up to date on releases and publications.

You can catch up with me and my current reads by friending me on Goodreads and following this blog, my Twitter, and my Instagram in order to stay up-to-date with any reviews, blog tours, and more!

Who Hurt You (Cracked Not Broken, #1) by Chelle Wolfe Review

This is a spoiler-free review! Trigger warnings include violence, attempted sexual assault, murder, and gore.

I downloaded this on Stuff Your Kindle Day, and then got so overwhelmed by the fifty books that I did download that I only was reading from my physical TBR pile for most of June and July. Looking for a quick little palette cleanser before diving back into a fantasy book, this caught my eye with it's summary and novella-length. Halle and Parks are serial killers, and Parks is Halle's stalker -- how sweet!

Halle works for some type of organization called the Library, where her marks, also known as "books," are given to her. She is very into seeking justice for women who have been wronged, and does not take BS from anyone that comes her way. She reminds me a lot of Sibby from the Satan's Affair by H.D. Carlton, in the sense of her personality and her motives.

Parks, ironically, reminds me of Zade from Haunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton, even though he is obsessed with Adeline in that duet. Both are stalkers who happen upon a girl that catches their interests and are serial killers -- starting to think I have a type when it comes to dark romance. He gives Halle the nickname of "Rainbow" because of her colorful hair, but it just feels out of place for a serial killer to be giving people goofy nicknames.

The banter was cute but it started to feel like the same thing over and over again, much like the dialogue between Halle and Parks. She was always questioning him and he would just respond back that he needed to keep her safe because there were people that were after her. After a few chapters of basically the same thing happening, the story started to drag on, which I thought would be hard to do since it is under two hundred pages. Halle and Parks definitely had a spark between them, and you could tell that the chemistry was there, but it kept feeling like they would almost reach this point of infatuation with one another, and then it would fizzle away.

Now, this might be me just picking at things, but I was going to start to lose my mind if I saw one more Star Wars reference while reading this book. I have to respect the media literacy with our main female lead, but my word I was getting annoyed every time she made a reference. Also, the way that Halle and Parks spoke to each other just was not my cup of tea -- they both sounded like they wanted to have an edge to the way they spoke, but it just came off as corny to me. Especially when they would be fighting one minute and doing it the next, there was barely any build up and then the scene would be over about two pages later.

I will say that there is definitely plot development happening in this story, despite what some other reviews say -- it is most certainly not all smut, and I would say that there is actually more plot than smut in a surprising turn of events. The story actually had a lot of potential, and I feel as though if it had been longer, we would have gotten a more fleshed-out story with well-developed plot and smut scenes. I was pretty much prepared for this to be all smut and a dash of plot, and was pleasantly surprised that there was some depth to the characters and the story, even if it was not extremely deep.

You can add Who Hurt You on Goodreads now, and follow the author to stay up to date on releases and publications.

You can catch up with me and my current reads by friending me on Goodreads and following this blog, my Twitter, and my Instagram in order to stay up-to-date with any reviews, blog tours, and more!

This is War (Checkmate Duet Series, #1) by Kennedy Fox Review

This is a spoiler-free review! This is War is currently available for free on iBooks and Kindle.

I love a good brother's best friend and roommate romance, and this book checked all of my expected boxes -- they hate each other, bickering all of the time, forced to stay in the same house, and driving each other up a wall at every chance they get. Travis is just a few years older than Viola, but the man acts like a man-child whereas Viola wants nothing more to study and get out of the house as soon as possible. It is basically a match made in heaven.

My man Travis is an absolute animal, and I could not even tell you if that is a good thing or not. When his ego isn't leading him around the office or his house, he is like a cat in heat with a girl in his bed every other night. Meanwhile Viola is doing everything in her power to tame him while she stays at his place, but this lingering childhood resentment is definitely poking a hole in her plan. There is so much unresolved tension between the two of them, I am honestly surprised that no one else even noticed that they definitely did not hate each other the way that everyone thought.

There are so many Harry Potter references in this book, it almost made the story unbearable at points. Understanding that this book came out six years, I will give it a pass, but certainly puts the dating of the story on thin ice for me. I have never been a fan of book, movie, or music references in books because I always feel like the story is stuck in whatever year it was published and does not have a chance to move along with current trends.

For someone who cannot get Viola's name out of his head, Travis sure does love screwing anything with a pulse. In the beginning of the book it was expected and definitely played into his character, but two thirds into the book and nearly nothing has changed except him now thinking about Viola when he is with other girls but not doing anything about it made me start to lose interest in him. He gets insanely possessive of Viola when other guys are around her -- which I actually really enjoyed, because it made his character start to have more personality -- but his constant torment of her in the house went from playful to annoying fairly quick.

The sex scenes were mediocre at best, and at times even just flat out unrealistic. They were fun at first because of the built up tension between Travis and Viola, but when they finally did more, it fell kind of flat. It is definitely on the tamer side of being categorized as erotica, so if you are looking for something fun and quick, this certainly will meet your expectations.

I really enjoyed how Travis and Viola's relationship developed -- the lingering childhood betrayal or miscommunication was always there in the background for the both of them, and of course they both had their own sides to the story. It definitely had that enemies-to-lovers feel as much as a contemporary romance can have, so the bickering if off the charts, but not so over the top that it feels too much.

This series consists of three duets, so you only need to read the first two books in order to wrap up Travis and Viola's story before moving onto Viola's brother, Drew, and her best friend, Courtney. I am intrigued on how the remainder of Travis and Viola's relationship plays out, so I may pick up the second when I have a spare minute in between tackling my TBR pile. I would recommend this to romance readers who are looking to move on from early-college contemporary romance and turn toward new adult college romance with a touch of spice. While we only see a few glimpses of Viola's college life, she is just about graduated.

You can add This is War and the rest of the series on Goodreads now, and follow the author to stay up to date on releases and publications.

You can catch up with me and my current reads by friending me on Goodreads and following this blog, my Twitter, and my Instagram in order to stay up-to-date with any reviews, blog tours, and more!