I can't rate this a 5 solely because it was unsatisfying in the way it left me wanting more. thankfully there is more but holy shit holy shit holy shit!!!

my heart was in my throat for the whole last chapter. my heart was pounding while reading the whole book.

most fantasy enemies to lovers books do one of two things: enemy does bad things with good intentions, or out of misunderstandings, or is in some way cursed or forced to be bad, or enemy falls in insta-love and suddenly regrets everything he's done as he develops empathy. 

this one does neither. Valroy does bad things because he has to but also because he wants to. there is a twinge of pity and empathy in the fact that he was created for the purpose of cruelty, that it's all he's ever known, but he revels in it and does not wish to stop and this is unacceptable to Abigail. He doesn't even seem to understand why she finds him so abhorrent which makes it even harder to untangle her feelings for him.

Abigail is a perfect character. From first meeting she is downtrodden but warm-hearted, not in a Pollyanna cheerful way but just someone with a deep sense of empathy and justice. She's scrappy and insightful but she doesn't have the power to actually win her battles. The war between her lust and loathing for Valroys is much more palpable and realistic than other fantasy e2l protags and I adored everything she did. 

The setting is lush and intricately woven, the side characters are vibrant and lovable, the writing style had me desperately flipping to the next chapter, and I'm writing this as fast as I can so I can get to the sequel. Fucking stellar.

This book gave me dark Labyrinth vibes. Not just because there is a "maze" involved. Imagine Labyrinth with an R rating and a lot of blood. That's this book. 

Abigail is taken to the land of fae by the prince of the Unseelie. She keeps making deals with him and he takes advantage of loopholes in their deals. Abigail is very trusting of every fae she comes into contact with, despite internally reminding herself that she was taught by her aunt not to trust any fae. 

I got tired of the "rapport" between Abigail and Valroy.  It was like the same conversation over and over. It's like Abigail kept trying to change Valroy and we would keep telling her of his nature.

Did I like this book? Meh, it was a different read. It was sold to me as something spicy. There was maybe .5 chilis of spice with the tension of Abigail denying her feelings.

They didn't even get together at the end. Which was pretty disappointing.

It has a cliffhanger ending, FYI. And not a great one at that. 

Will I be continuing this series? Nope. I'm not into the amount of gore in this book and I did not like the characters enough.

bullshit

Slightly disturbed. Cliff hanger ending. I don’t know why I read this book, I didn’t like it, and yet I really want to see were this goes (not in a good way) 
Info on the rape: (he doesn't do it, its talked about)

This book was reasonably enjoyable but I felt that about two thirds of the way though it was becoming quite repetitive. Wasn't expecting the ending though so bonus points for that. 

One thing that I did find kind of annoying was that the main character is supposed to be British but occasionally would use phrases and terms that wouldn't be used here and I found that quite jarring. 

Pretty much just a fun smutty romp if you're into a dark antihero. (As a heads up though, this book is primarily just a lot of teasing- not much actual Action if you get my drift.) The dark prince is, in fact, largely a bad person and does some pretty fucked up things to confirm to the MC that that is his true self. For me personally, I preferred that over books that show a bad-guy-turned-good... sometimes it's fine for bad people to just know themselves as bad people! It happens! I do appreciate though that the author regularly emphasized that consent would still be required for actually serious physical action. Even bad guys respect consent!

I found the MC a little exhausting, but the world building and the plot's main mystery kept me hooked, even if I initially started as an ironic read.