This series is so good!! If you like fantasy romance and mystery it's perfect. I did feel like the beginning of this was a bit slower and took a while to really grab me. The mystery in this one compared to Belladonna was also not as much of a focus and so therefore it wasn't quite as well done.

That being said Death and Signa are everything. Blythe is also so amazing, I'm so glad we got her POV. I wanted to like Fate more, but he annoyed me for most of this book. I'm willing to give him another chance tho...

I am already dying for book 3, cause I think that one is going to make me feral.

3/5 🌶️ (not graphic)

Society girl moves to California in hopes of connecting with her childhood crush only to find out he's rented his room to a random guy (who turns out to be an adult film star). Education ensues...
Is the premise a bit absurd, yes. But I really enjoyed the message of sexual empowerment in this book.

4/5 🌶️

This is a heavy book, but it's well worth the read. 

There is a big theme in the main character Maddie experiencing that feeling of 'what if' she had done x differently. And of course the answer is that A) we can't change the past and B)such minute things that happen really don't make a difference long term. I found the point of this book to be that anything that has happened in the past if changed (Al Gore winning for example) wouldn't have made any real difference in terms of where we are sociopolitically today. Because we live in a white supremacist capitalistic society and those oppressive societal structures need to be completely removed before society as a whole could drastically change for the largest group of people worldwide. We individually can make certain choices and work together to make change, but ultimate it's these oppressive power structures which keep our society stagnant.

I thought the themes of greenwashing (aka furthering capitalism through consumerism) were so realistic. This captured what it's like to be a white woman involved in activism so well. How there are so many cringe moments when you are trying to help and learn, and sometimes you just get it wrong. It's a rather bleak outlook, but the ending does sew some seeds of optimism and inspiration (the mycelium quote blew my mind).

I know I'll be thinking about this book for a long time and recommending it to a lot of people.

Thank you Netgalley and Sim Kern for the ARC!

I went into this knowing nothing besides having read this author before so being familiar with their style. I was not expecting a ‘family that owns basically disneyworld’ billionaire romance. I didn’t personally jive with setup for the relationship and there being two times the Rowan betrayed Zahra (the justification was lackluster). I’ll continue the series cause I think the premise of this relationship just didn’t do it for me especially as a workplace romance. I also personally did not need two epilogues. 

4/5🌶️

stopping until I can get an audiobook to do along with the physical!

My first and last Lucy Score (because after reading this there’s no way I’m reading anything even longer). I found Silas to be insufferable and like the kind of jerk who seems nice on the surface but is really just subtly controlling? It’s insta-love in the worst way, Silas literally sees Maggie and immediately starts referring to her as his future wife. I kept reading because of the mystery of the house renovation plot line, and not the romance.

Not enough of the dog (who is described as brindle in the book so…). The best character is a curmudgeonly towns person.

Dual pov but there’s only one narrator 😕
4/5 🌶️

the movie is better.


Basically the way it's written is kinda hard to follow. There's no chapters or breaks within the book besides being divided into 4 parts. The focus is much more on the morality behind vampirism, so it's MOSTLY character driven in that way although there is some plot.

Positives: world-building is super interesting, immersive, unique and well described. Wanting to learn more about this world is what kept me reading.

Negatives: pretty much everything else unfortunately. The characters were lacking in complexity and interest. Mary is just kind of along for the ride, rather than driving the story which is boring as a main character. The relationship between Mary and Samuel, which I've heard has been described as slow burn, is nonexistent until the end and as they spent most of the book apart, really what is this romance based on?

Even though this was turning out to be more interesting than the first few books I just don’t really feel invested in finishing such a long series

The best of the series for sure! A strong conclusion to the trio. The characters are still the best part so this book being a convergence of a lot of the characters plot wise made it so fun to read. The world has and always will be fascinating to read about. The villain was good, but a bit repetitive. Audio narrators for book 2 and 3 are good. 

Schwab is so fucking smart, leaving the story with Anoshe :')