You see: this book wasn’t *terrible*. But *I* personally was so goddamn bored that I cannot give it above a 2,5 *. With all due respect: I just wanted this book to be over. 😭

The premise was good: childhood-friends-turned-enemies (1 is a vampire reaper, 1 is the heiress to the empire that protects humans from reapers) who are forced to work together to uncover the mystery behind the death of a member of that empire. Sounds cool, right?! Unfortunately, though, the book just didn’t deliver. 😬


🩸 PLOT/“MYSTERY”:

I hesitate to call this a mystery because there was barely any mystery here. Some people died and Elise and Layla are tasked with finding out what happened, especially because it seems like 1 of the people went from reaper to human (which is supposedly impossible). It literally takes them aaaages to find anything useful for their investigation. It’s only halfway through the book that they find a 2nd person who seems to have gone from reaper to human (so they realize that could be a pattern). 😐

The investigation in this book is soooooo fucking boring! Elise and Layla basically just go around and talk so some people, sometimes. They don’t seem to have any of the urgency they should have when dealing with a murder (especially when *more* people could be in danger). They’re also pretty bad investigators, and never manage to question the most obvious things (especially Elise). At 70-75% it is “revealed” that the doctor/businessmen/whatever who were looking for a cure to reaperhood had been testing on people (mostly black people). I’m saying it’s “revealed” in quotes because……….. how is that a revelation???? Not only were they OBVIOUSLY the bad guys (it could literally be nobody else; the author didn’t even bother putting more suspects in this story lol), but also… this book is literally sold on the premise of “experimentation on black bodies”!!!! 🥴🤦 How are you gonna write that as a plot twist or big revelation when it’s literally in your marketing material, and you didn’t even set up any other suspects? 😭 I was so confused when the characters were shocked to realize that, because it was obvious from the beginning…

So, the plot was a big miss for me: extremely slow paced (very little actually happens), the MCs are bad at investigating (and seem to care very little about finding answers, idk…), and the bad guys were obvious from the start. Overall: SNOOZEFEST. 🥱😴



🩸 CHARACTERS & ROMANCE:

Layla was a fine MC. She had it pretty rough, becoming a reaper, losing her parents and the people she grew up with. She’s supposed to be charming and sassy, but, at times, it came off kinda stale. But, overall, she’s the most enjoyable character here.

Elise, on the other hand……. Oh boy. She was quite infuriating. Her relationship with her shitty dad was kind of interesting, but it also became annoying when she would refuse to see the obvious because of how blinded she is by her daddy. And like, I get it: it’s supposed to be a toxic familial relationship; but it was still annoying and boring to see Elise ignore her father’s questionable behaviour for the 100th time. It got repetitive, and made Elise an infuriating character to follow.

Elise is just a rich and privileged girl who is completely unaware of her privilege. People always had to explain the simplest things to her (like when Sterling had to explain that he cannot be as reckless as her because the Saint Empire is her family, but it’s his JOB). Don’t get me wrong, it IS an accurate representation of a rich person who doesn’t care about the people around her, but goddamn. It was a bit frustrating to read.

The worst instance of Elise showing her lack of awareness was when she told Layla she loves her. Here’s how that scene plays out: they’re arguing and Layla angrily asks why Elise left Layla to die 5 years ago (when Layla ended up becoming a reaper), and Elise is like ~~“Oh I explained myself in a song I wrote at the time! Because music is the only way I know how to express myself anymore! 🤪”~~, which was already annoying, like….. boo fucking hoo. Elise then starts throwing herself a pity party and Layla THANKFULLY clocks her and says “How dare you talk about loss. You had everything—you still do. Yet somehow, you have managed to pin this on me. How in the world are your feelings toward me my fault”.

Elise then says she fell in love with Layla and monologues about how hard it was to continue with her life after what happened with Layla, which doesn’t explain any of her behaviour, but I digress. When Layla begs her to shut up (which like, yeah please!!! Elise is fucking annoying! I simply do not give a fuck about your pity party!) Elise is basically like ~~“I WONT shut up! I’ve suffered A LOT! 😤”~~…………………………………… Bitch? Layla DIED, became a murderous beast, her family died, and the people she grew up with started hating her for something she can’t control. YOU wanna talk about suffering? SHUT THE FUCK UP ELISE PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!! This whole scene just emphasized Elise’s lack of awareness. I genuinely don’t know how Layla ended up falling for Elise.

Speaking of which… the romance? Kinda bad, not gonna lie. 😬 I just don’t think the author did a good job developing Elise and Layla’s relationship. Their friendship in the past wasn’t very well established (this could be fixed with some flashbacks). The biggest problem, however, was their relationship in the present. I just couldn’t understand why they started liking each other. The author compared them to Catradora and Caitvi, but I personally didn’t feel any of that tension or buildup. Suddenly near the end they were in love and I was just like…. okay. Sure. If you say so. 😐

Elise and Layla’s ~moments~ fell completely flat. Like, I could tell what the author was going for, but since she didn’t do a very good job establishing the relationship, everything felt awkward and undeserved, and I couldn’t see any reason for them to be in love.

It also didn’t help that the book was filled with the most cliché and overdone things you could possibly think of. Like, yeah, there’s a masquerade ball. There’s a love confession in the middle of an argument. There’s a scene where the human lets the vampire drink her blood and it’s all very intimate, yada yada yada. 😒. I simply did not give a damn about those ~moments~ they shared. Like, yeah yeah of course there would be a scene where the vampire drinks from the human and it’d be weirdly sensual. Let’s move on, shall we? 😪🥱

Long story short: the MCs were meh. The romance was booooooo.



🩸 OTHERS:

🩸 The side characters were mostly irrelevant. Elise’s friend Thalia was in 1 scene and then died (who cares?). Sterling (Elise’s bff) and Jamie (Layla’s gangster acquaintance) were fine, but I’ll forget about them in a week (hopefully). Elise’s mother was barely in the book but came in at the end to cry about not realizing Elise was unhappy (like, okay… sure). The other reapers (like Layla’s friend Mei and Valeriya, the reaper leader) were… there. The bad guys fell flat because, as I mentioned, it was obvious that they were bad from the very start of the book, so…………..

🩸 I feel like the setting (both in terms of location and time period) didn’t really add anything to the story. The author could’ve done a lot with it, but didn’t, so this story could’ve honestly taken place anytime, anywhere.

🩸 Overall, I don’t think this book is terrible, and I can definitely see how other people might enjoy it. To me, however, this was painfully boring, and I dreaded having to pick it up. I genuinely hope other people can find joy in it, though, because I looooove that black sapphics are getting their cheesy vampire stories hehe. Perhaps in a couple of years I’ll check back in with this author. I think she has potential.