When Jade West is good, she’s amazing, but this one was just okay for me. There was definitely a KINKTOMATO factor here, but I did seriously appreciate the client proposal format, so you could just skip the chapters you weren’t into— it just was more chapters as it went on. When this one says it’s hardcore, believe it for real. And while I appreciated Ella’s story, after spending a whole book with her, I’m not as invested as I feel like I should be.

Goddamn it, I love this series so much. This one took a bit to get into, and honestly I wasn’t super looking forward to Maud’s story— I didn’t particularly like her (or Hawthorn!) after book one, and honestly I was pulling for a book for Adelaide Morrissey. That said, this book changed my mind. Maud and Hawthorn are still clearly the same characters from A Marvellous Light, neither of them have huge personality shifts, but time spent with them and the development throughout the book have endeared them both to me. Violet is a delightful addition and I cannot wait to see more of Alan Ross in the next book. The scenes with the four of them are definite high points here, and the porn-dramatization scene had me cackling.

Marske expands on her worldbuilding here in ways I didn’t even realize was lacking in the first one. We get a much better sense of the magical world and how it all works, and what the Last Contract even IS. Some of the mystery I figured out, but even still, the turns were satisfying.

Aysha Kala does an amazing job with the audio. A few of her female characters end up sounding similar, but she kills it with the accents, and Violet’s English-American mashup especially. Definitely going to look out for more audios by her.

Immediately starting up the next book, hoping for more of ALL the characters now that we’re back in England.

Read this in Monsters in Love, Vol 6. Lovely story and I adored Zak and Rose, but the Author’s Note blurb at the beginning felt spoilery, and the end was much too quick and everything felt unfinished about it. Plus the Unraveling isn’t really explained and as someone who has never read Allegra Hall before, that was very confusing. But I’ll definitely be reading more of hers. The New Zealand setting is especially fun and different.

What I read was mostly 3 stars and under. I solidly liked some of it, but the Underworld thing isn’t super my jam, and the ones I skipped just didn’t appeal to me. Shout out to Lost and Found by Allegra Hall as my runaway fave here though.