Format: ebook
Published: June 22nd, 2021
Age: Adult
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Rating: 3/5 Stars
I was really close to loving this book, but unfortunately by the end I was left feeling a little deflated. There were just too many things throughout that put me off.
Evie wants to be a journalist, but at the ripe old age (yep, she talks about being 25 like she’s totally and utterly ‘past it’) of 25 she realises it’s time to get a ‘proper job’, at least so she can afford rent. So, she temps at a small consultancy, where Misha Meserov investigates whether people are cheating by encouraging them to cheat. Either with him, or one of the freelancers the business uses.
There are some mysteries surrounding Misha, and despite signing an NDA, Evie decides to investigate these, sharing her findings in a Google Doc with a journalist she’s worked with previously, including details of the consultancy’s latest case and the strange deaths linked to the firm’s clients.
There was a lot I liked about this book – the consultancy is a really interesting idea, and I loved Misha as a character. He’s layered and complicated, and cares for the people around him, while struggling with a darkness he can’t always control. The majority of things I disliked about the book centred around the main character, Evie. Evie, unfortunately, seems to have a lot of internal misogyny when it comes to women around her – she’s very judgemental in a way I don’t think was intended by the author, but which comes across as very “I’m not like other girls”. When she meets the other woman who has gone for the receptionist job at the consultancy, she instantly thinks about how Gemma will marry an older man who will provide for her. She’s like this about almost every other woman in the book. Oh! Except her best friend, who is a lesbian.
And here’s a comment from Evie –
“I didn’t want to be that girl, you know, the one that’s curious but can’t go through? My roommate’s a hundred percent gay and she’s had some bad experiences with girls who weren’t as bi as they thought they were.”
So yes, a nice bit of biphobia thrown in to the book. But it’s okay because the MC – who is an incubus, and very sexual, and uses sex to manipulate other people – is bi! Those kind of things added up throughout. There was good tension between Evie and Misha, but at times this was overshadowed by Evie’s flipflopping with him. I get that things could get confusing and scary, but she seems very quick to judge Misha and get annoyed at him, when it’s uncalled for. It felt odd at times, as she goes from “Oh, I love Misha” to “what an arsehole”, and it made the relationship side feel a bit weaker than it needed to be.
I didn’t dislike this book, but if the issues had been addressed or Evie was a bit more of an interesting, less judgemental character, I would have enjoyed it a lot more.
Reading Challenge
Barbie Reading Challenge
Prompt: Watati – A mystery or thriller book
Progress: 13/17 Completed
Unwrapping Words 