The start felt like a historical set up (

FMC sexual debut, forced marriage, kind of a medieval setting

), and really ramped up in the last 25%. Massive cliffhanger, but I'm definitely reading book 2. 🤷🏼‍♀️🥳

Wow! This quartet just keeps getting better and better.💖 The action, the found family, the absolute bonkers take on South Asian mythology...it's just all really well done. We've got dragons, and (non-traditional) vampires, and magic, oh my! But seriously, these books are just a good time with characters to root for. And with solid spice? C'mon...what's not to love? I am eagerly anticipating the final book sometime in 2025 (I hope?!?) 🙏

4.25🌟
It is not often that an author's 2nd book does it for me, but that was the case in this instance. You mean you're gonna give me a story where the protagonist basically gets to live out her Buffy/Vampire Diaries/True Blood fantasy? And have characters who are Spike and Cordelia coded in the best way? Say less. Keeping in mind this also tackles a traumatic subject (SA), I thought the author handled it with a deft touch. If you love your vamps more snarky and less sparkly, this'll be a great book for you to ... sink your teeth into. 😬🤣

This is my third Charlotte Stein book, and if you had asked me before reading it, I would have said it would probably be my last. It won't be my last. 🤣 I adored this quirky, fumbly, sweet book so much! It made me laugh out loud several times, and tear up at the emotions of the characters. They were well drawn and fallible, with so much heart and angst. 😍 And it was witches, werewolves, familiars (Pod the raccoon! 🥹), and all kinds of supernatural goodness. What I'm saying is I am all the way in on Stein if this is what she is writing moving forward. Fair warning: schmexytime is a slooowwww burn. 😝

This was such a pleasant surprise of a book! I wasn't sure what to expect going in. What I found was a funny, self-effacing, emotional story about life's second "acts", the issues we all have with judging others' actions (or lack of action), and the power of forgiving ourselves and those who have hurt us. This book had that rare mix of humor and emotional intelligence which defines the human experience. 💞