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I've entirely lost steam on this series. Or maybe this installment just felt like it was phoned in. The first third of the book felt almost completely disconnected from the Ireland plot, and then there was rising action and rising action and rising action, with a rather short climax and then ... it ended. No wrap-up at all.

I can't keep track of all of the characters the protagonist is sleeping with, and the one she likes the best is my least favorite character in the series.

Meanwhile, the best character in the series is the one she doesn't ever sleep with. (Which is great. That should never change. But it means he doesn't feature as heavily into things as he could, given the pages upon pages spent on sex scenes and preaching about polyamory and weird sexist bullshit.)

Since the next threat on Anita's radar is from the paramilitary world, not the metaphysical one, the next book will hopefully feature a lot more Edward and a lot less Nathaniel. Fingers crossed.

Courtney Milan is probably why I find so many other romances by so many other authors really disappointing.

She writes trans characters and bi characters and gay characters, and they get to be full human beings who have good and bad relationships and who don't have to die to move the story along.

She has smart heroines. They aren't all literature, folklore, or history majors—maybe none of them are, and that's OK, given the overrepresentation of them in the rest of romance.

She still uses the tropes of the genre, but unlike so many romance authors, she colors all the way to the edges. The reader recognizes the tropes and knows what's most likely to happen, but it doesn't feel formulaic or predestined as one is reading—the tropes sit more lightly on the story and feel optional, as if she might choose a different ending, where lesser authors leave no doubt of where the story is going.

My feelings about this book kind of went in waves.

At first I was interested in the premise and found the writing and imagery very powerful.

I grew tired of it and increasingly edgy as it seemed to be predominantly a story of an abusive figure controlling a woman's life. I nearly stopped reading.

The introduction of other supernatural elements and the break in the demon's onslaught renewed my interest, so that I was glad I'd picked it up again.

Then the next controlling, borderline abusive relationship happened and quickly became simultaneously upsetting and tiresome. Again, I nearly stopped reading.

Only at the very end, where the introduction of multiple factions of supernaturals happened, was I pleased to have kept reading. That--the binding of our heroine to several additional, competing groups--happened so quickly and so late in the book, it almost felt like an afterthought. But it made for several really promising plots to come.

If I felt confident that the demon lover character would never return, I'd pick up the rest of the series.

I really liked the mouse.

Really, really terrible book. The characters aren't likable or really even believable; the supposedly 30 year old characters act more like you'd expect a 19 year old to act.

Worse, the protagonist is constantly referred to as "fat" and "round" and a whole lot of other negative terms (in addition to some positive ones that ultimately mean the same things), when it's clearly stated that she wears a size 16 on a bad day. If you're going to market your book as a romance with a plus-size protagonist, maybe language choice around size should be handled well. And since a person who wears a small 16 doesn't actually have to shop at plus-size stores, maybe just don't market it that way.

Also, the love interest is almost completely without redeeming qualities, and he doesn't so much experience "character growth" as "a complete turnabout of who he is," in the course of the book. (Which is a thing that can be written convincingly, but I couldn't buy this one.)

Skip this one, seriously.