Opal Reyne

Only reason this is not five stars as I was not hooked by the end of chapter 2. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will be reading the second. I was obsessed by halfway through from Reia and Orpheus bad past to them coming together against all odds. This isn’t just a smutty book but the ‘monster’ smut is absolutely positively amazing. Again only 4 stars cuz I wasn’t hooked by chapter two reason why I’m not too much of a fan of slow burns this is more of a medium burn to me wasn’t right off the bat but didn’t have to wait till the end.… (meer)

5 ⭐

“Welcome to the horny Duskwalker club.”

This was a hard but satisfying read for me compared to A Soul to Keep. Delora is our FMC. She's a plus-size woman who suffers from anxiety and depression because of everything going on with her life. Unlike the first book, Delora gave her soul to the Duskwalker about 10% into the book, but it doesn't mean the couple hadn't faced any difficulties. I'd say more than Reia and Orpheus, Delora and Nameless had deeper and riskier conflicts.

Nameless (he'll have a different name later on) is a Duskwalker who is both naive and feral due to his lack of humanity. His Mavka brother Orpheus is intelligent and can understand humans better, which is more often than not a source of Nameless' envy towards him. Because of these traits and Delora's deepening depression, they face many rocky hurdles in their relationship, and one of them is handling a Mavka pregnancy and raising it (yes, this has a pregnancy trope).

While I saw many people hating on Delora, especially in the first half of the book, I cannot say I agree. In fact, I have never read a character I've related to so much than Delora. I might not have murdered my (hypothetical) husband and his mistress, but I have struggled so much with my mental health and weight that showing it on paper was both hard and liberating to read. I had to put down my Kindle many times in order not to cry outright (I still did). The way she climbed out of her depression and eventually let go of her guilt and pains made me feel less alone in my struggles.

Hence, it took me almost a month to finish this book. But it was incredibly worth it.

Overall though, I love this book. I have never felt more seen and heard in my whole life reading a book before. There are very few (good) inclusive books published today, and I just read one of them. To my plus-size girlies struggling with their weight, mental health, and self-worth, Nameless and I hope that you feel as warm and accepted in this book as I have if you decide to read it.… (meer)

My Review:

I will keep this short as I didn't get very far into this one. So I am pretty sure monster romance just isn't my thing at all. Even though I enjoyed the first book a bit, her writing is slow and hard to get engaged in and also I am not a fan of how this one was written. Even though the premise was really fascinating, I just couldn't quite click with it on the level that I actually wanted to. I am realizing that Monster romance rubs me the wrong way and I just don't care for it. Also from the beginning the heroine is a murderer, and that completely turned me off very quickly from the story.… (meer)