Conclave (Devil's Night, #3.5) by Penelope Douglas Review

This review contains spoilers - please read with discretion. You can read my reviews of Corrupt, Hideaway, and Kill Switch on my blog, now!

Like an addiction you cannot kick, I cannot seem to stop reading these books, no matter how many brain cells I continue to lose. I always expect a different outcome and yet I am continuously shown that these books are nowhere near the hype everyone gives them. I truly wish the case was different, because I can definitely see the potential in these characters and their stories, but unfortunately they do not hit the mark.

We see Damon and Winter mostly in Part 1 with Rika and Michael taking more center stage in Part 2 in this novella. Of the three installments that I had read, these two pairings are my least favorite, which only indicates how I was going to feel when reading these updates to their stories. I will never forgive Damon for the way he treated Rika and the extremes he took in terrorizing her in Corrupt and the relationship between him and Winter will never sit right with me. Michael is probably second worst to Damon and the fact that he spent so much of his time tormenting Rika in their book and now I am being tortured with their relationship drama.

Damon wants Winter to have eight hundred children and is dead serious when he asks the doctor how long until Winter can get pregnant again after literally pushing a child out of herself mere moments prior. I hate men. Meanwhile Rika is hiding the fact that she has a very high probability of never being able to conceive from Michael, and therefore putting off their wedding for as long as she can... a match made in heaven, apparently. The boys basically spend the entire novella crying over the fact that Will is not there with them instead of focusing on their own relationships. Might as well be dating Will and dumping their wives/girlfriends at this point.

The smut once again is as underwhelming as ever - which is a shame considering the smut in Credence was diabolically addictive if my memory serves true (Uncle Jake, I miss you...). Thankfully there are only two more installments to go and then I will be free from this prison that this series currently holds me captive in. I really do not like to yuck anyone's yum, but unless Douglas manages to truly do a 180 with the next book, I fear these remain lackluster in my eyes.

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Hideaway (Devil's Night, #2) by Penelope Douglas Review

This is a spoiler-free review! Please read trigger warnings - reader discretion advised. You can read my review of Corrupt on my blog, here.

I kicked myself in the shin the second I requested this on Libby - considering how much I wanted to pull my hair out while reading Corrupt, I do not even know why I did this to myself again. I had much lower expectations going into this second installment, and yet somehow it disappointed me even more than Corrupt. The "twist" was so obvious I could see it coming from the beginning, and the constant going back and forth between six years ago and present day felt redundant - there was only so much we could learn from the past before there was no more content. I will say the last 15% of this book finally had me locked in - it finally felt as though some major plot moves were happening and it was not riddled with constant recalls to the past.

Rika this, Rika that... enough is enough!! I literally do not care about that girl a single bit. Yet she seems to be the apple of everyone's eye - I thought we were completely over her after the first book. Yet she continues to be the driving force of the narrative, even when she is no longer the female lead. That being said, Banks as a lead was interesting only for her relationship to Damon - she was certainly an improvement compared to Rika, but she still just did not have that factor that i was looking for in a dark romance. And of course, where there is Rika, there is Michael. While his appearances were few and scattered, I still rolled my eyes every single time he manifested on page and ran around saying how Rika will always come before his "best friends," even though up until how many months ago was he actively ruining her life???

Kai as the male lead in this installment was an improvement to Michael, but only marginally so. I still felt some distrust towards him considering the way he acted in Corrupt, but he definitely improved now that he was not chasing down Rika and trying to ruin her life at every chance he got. That being said... we get it, he went to jail. Yes, he beat up someone, but it was an abusive cop, so I say we let it go and move on. It felt like every single chapter in Kai's perspective, he was either moping about the fact that him going to jail was the biggest shame his family experienced, or him trying to stalk around town following Banks. Honestly, I was starting to wish that Kai acted more unhinged at some points because at least the plot would have felt like it was moving or had some excitement.

Banks felt like her whole characterization was meant to make readers start to feel sympathetic towards Damon... obviously I hate what he went through as a child, but good grief the man is running around actively trying to kill his "friends" and go way too far with Rika. Banks providing all of this lore on him as he grew up and honestly how he was in the present could have been much more played up if Banks had an actual personality other than being held hostage and crying that she loves Damon. She had more guts than Rika, I will give her that. The fact that she actually was actively aware of her surroundings was an improvement beyond comprehension compared to... whatever Rika was doing in Corrupt.

This needed to be juicier, crazier, and frankly, freakier. I needed the wildness that Corrupt gave us with Michael and Rika but cranked up hundred times, and instead we got a few little smutty chapters that cut much shorter than they should have. If Douglas did not spend so much time having the characters not use their braincells, then things would have wrapped up much quicker and maybe we would have been treated to some debauchery instead of lackluster problem-solving.

You can add Hideaway 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 (X), and my Instagram in order to stay up-to-date with any reviews, blog tours, and more!