I knew going into this one that I’d be reading it and skimming a lot of the romance (which, yes, is a large part of the book) so take my review with a grain of salt. Overall, this book felt like a deviation from the main arc to focus on one side character. Granted, we do have a second character, but I couldn’t connect with him. He was sprung too quickly onto me with no history mentioned and so it overall just felt like nothing more than an inserted love interest who, in my opinion, didn’t make sense as a love interest. I personally appreciated that Cian’s character is ace and didn’t need to have a romantic plot, so I was a bit disappointed by that. I skimmed a lot of the romance and read this book mostly for the few moments where bits of the main plot are set up for us in preparation for the final book.





Would I go back in time and still read this book, knowing what I know now?
Yes. Again, I went in with certain expectations and I’d probably still read it the same way.




See below for the four criteria I use to decide whether and when to read a book


CHARACTERS: Cian and Fenric have most of the POVs, which makes sense given this is their story. Again, I skimmed a lot of Fenric’s POV and any spots where Cian was suddenly waxing lyrical about Fenric which he did A LOT. I think I would have enjoyed it more if Cian’s love interest was someone we had met before, even in passing or in their history. Anything at all. If you can get past that issue, he’s written well as a cat-sidhe who can turn into two types of cats and spends so much of his time curled up as a cat letting Cian pet him. Cian struggles with his feelings for Fenric, which again, truly didn’t make any sense or ring true to me at all. If he’d been there before in Cian’s history where Cian actually spared a thought for him it would have made more sense that he’d actually have feelings, but it didn’t feel that way to me. The rest of the characters were, as usual, fun to see when we got a chance to see them and I appreciated that the book wasn’t 100% suddenly just two people.





PLOT: Overall, Cian’s fated mate suddenly shows up and Cian struggles to come to terms with his feelings for Fenric. This is the main plot. Lots of flowery descriptions of the same things over and over and then Cian, who made sense as an ace character, end up topping and having sex multiple times with Fenric. Again, it didn’t make sense. Otherwise, the main plot doesn’t move too much. Cian and Fenric help Angel to take out the assassins that are targeting the Salvatore clan, though most of it isn’t much but waiting. In the end, Fenric and Cian come together and Angel receives some big news at the very end which sets us up perfectly for the final book in this series. I’m so excited to get to it.





EMOTIONAL INTENSITY: There is no good/bad here. Sometimes I just want a low-investment entertainment read whereas other times a high-stakes 'I need a therapist to recover' is what I need.


1:5/low. It felt more like a beach read than anything else. Certainly no high stakes involved.


CATHARTIC FULFILLMENT: Is the emotional journey worth it? Do I finish this book feeling that I've crested the wave of the climactic moment and everything has been settled, leaving me settled and fulfilled?


50%. I mean, I went in with specific expectations and those were fulfilled. I didn’t personally feel a connection with our main pairing such as they were. But the 25% of the book that dealt with the overarching plot left me excited for the final book.