Overall, I really enjoyed this! Katee Robert did a great job with touching on religious trauma that unfortunately many people go through.

One thing that is focused on during this series is the fact that part of the deal the women of the series make is that they might end up having a baby -- and that the baby would stay in that realm if the woman chose to return to her home realm. It's really emphasized that the leaders of these different realms would want to have a baby with a human woman because that baby would be more powerful for whatever reason. This was a HUGE focus of this book, to the point that it was a little exhausting. I loved Belladonna and felt for her, but would have loved to have seen more moments that weren't about her deciding whether or not she would agree to have a baby, whether or not her decision was based in past trauma, etc. etc. There was a lot of skipping past her experiences that weren't focused on those things, and I think it would've been really nice to get more of her outside of that pain.

Again, very much enjoyed it and I think Robert handled that experience really well. I just think the book could have really benefited from pulling back and giving us other experiences for Belladonna. (As always though, love the spice lmao)

simply not the vibe

OKAYYYY this is great as far as giving more context to book one. I'm a little surprised that this one didn't come first, but I guess since it covers more time it makes enough sense. Christian is 13 years older than Matilda -- the main thing that prevents him from being open to a relationship with her at first. But when she goes to live with him and his sister, Bea, to act as Bea's art tutor, he simply cannot ignore the attraction between them. Their chemistry is fantastic. This is really more of a personal preference, but again I just really would have loved to see a little more time after they get together.