tl;dr
A sexy book packed with romance, opera drama, organized crime, and an interesting (albeit only somewhat fleshed out) magic system.

Thoughts
This is a very seductive book. Sexy, even? There's a lot going on in here, but the passages most tenderly and delicately written are dedicated to two very attractive humans and Cleo's feelings about them. The narrative is extremely clear about the differences between physical attraction and romantic attraction. Dahlia is alluring and seductive. She's fire and ice, power and danger, all wrapped in shadows. Cleo's yearning for her is instantaneous, a pulsing in her very body. Nuriel in contrast is withdrawn, standoffish, and it takes a lot longer for the two of them to warm up to each other as they crack through each other's outer defenses. Outside of that, we have a story that takes place largely in an opera house. It's an interesting gamble since the author clearly cares a lot about the opera, but the MC truly does not. This is baked into the plot and the character, not an oversight, and it pays off, but there are definitely spaces where I found myself wondering why I should care if Cleo didn't. The world building is done in broad strokes, with just enough detail to explain the magic system, but very little history beyond that. It was enough for me, but I could see lore lovers wanting some extra detail. This book is also a standalone, with a crack in the door juuuuust in case, but as a whole it wraps up everything very well.

Thanks to NetGalley and Tundra books for the advance copy. All thoughts in this review are my own!