I will admit, I had extremely high hopes for this one. Not that I didn’t like it, but I was expecting much different things and unfortunately it didn’t give me everything I wanted. The first half of the book took so long to get through and the second half I flew through. Not too happy when I do that although it can’t really be helped. I’ve read and enjoyed another book that the audio narrator’s done so I think for the next book (duology, ending next year), I’ll reread this book in audio and keep with audio for the second book.

Elise and Layla were two compelling characters and I liked seeing their journeys. As for whom I liked more, that changed every now and then. Elise would do something I didn’t like so Layla became my favourite. But then Layla betrayed me so back to Elise. The side characters were interesting but at times they seemed to fall a bit flat.

The plot was confusing at times and it didn’t flow as easily as I’d like. Perhaps that’s because this is Dennings’ debut and maybe she’ll improve as time goes by (I hope so). I’ll piece together a plot happily but I like having some jigsaw pieces just fall into place without me putting them in there – if that makes sense. I could definitely see Dennings’ passion for writing and for the genre and that was great to see. I always love reading vampire books because they’re new every time! New meaning the lore, history, rules tend to change and I like that. I liked the history of the setting and felt she wrote well in that – it never seemed like we weren’t in Jazz Age Harlem.