Ozroth can’t leave Mariel until the soul bargain is completed and Mariel plans on putting up a fight. I really enjoyed the characters, especially the way the main couple worked so well together and also the family dynamic was really quite something. Sarah Hawley lives in the Pacific Northwest, where her hobbies include rambling through the woods and appreciating fictional villains. I liked the story, it was really light and funny (not so much my type of humor) but still well enjoyable 💫. There was also a lot of growth from our FMC, which I was so happy to see, as well as some very positive messaging, especially near the end.

You want there to be a push and a pull, you want to be teased with them possibly having a chance of liking each other and then taking that away. I loved watching Mariel learn to start standing up for herself and set some boundaries with her family. Oz was such a contrast, cause I was waiting for him to be ruthless and unfeeling but he turned out to be such a vulnerable and sensitive man demon 🖤 . India Holton, bestselling author of THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEWOMEN WITCHES --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

I feel that if a romance has to work, the least you can do is treat your partner with some respect and dignity. There were some basic editing issues, with names being in lowercase or spaces between words missing a few times. Because of their circumstances, Mariel and Oz take time to warm up to each other, starting with friendship and then moving to romance. I think her mother was supposed to be comedic, but instead she was uncomfortably weird and annoying. When a spell to summon flour goes very wrong, Mariel finds herself staring down a demon - one she inadvertently summoned for a soul bargain.

Mariel was such a dorky and goofy type of character, we meet her and she has such a refreshing energy. and he falls first and as soon, as he realizes, that he doesn't want her to lose her soul, he becomes one of the best book-bf ever. Mariel is a witch that can’t seem to get anything right so it isn’t too much of a surprise when she accidentally summons Ozroth to deal for her soul.

Honestly though, her being this bad at magic just pissed me off because at 70% of the book HOW are you still incompetent? I did like that Mariel had her best friends though and that she found joy in her nature magic, which was incredibly strong (even if everyone else trivialized it).

Oz id annoying, easily offended, protective, and struggling to overcome the issue with a past bargain. I liked the scenes of Mariel being involved with her town from planning to enter a festival contest to protesting to protect the local forest. But Ozroth has a limited amount of time to strike the deal, and if Mariel gives up her soul, she'll lose all her emotions - including love - which will only spell disaster for them both. Having said that, I loved the characters and the vibe and so would recommend it to anyone who likes cozy magic reads!As for the romance, it was instalove but it honestly had a pretty decent execution since he was soooo down bad for her but, overall, the romance was lukewarm at best. Although I appreciate the well-written lore and themes of self-discovery and personal growth, I went through a painful time reading about how the heroine, and her family, sees herself as a disappointment over and over again for not being able to do magic "right" or "powerfully" like whatever the fuck her birth prophecy predicted.

She co-hosted the Wicked Wallflowers Club podcast about romance fiction, which was featured on Entertainment Weekly’s “Must List” as “a compelling reminder of why the oft-dismissed genre is a real force in cultural conversations about consent and desire. I think it was a tad long for my tastes just because the third-act breakup was a a dark cloud hanging over the rest.

I cared more about their relationship than the external plot, but I appreciated the witchy vibe nonetheless. She was a winner of RevPit 2018, and her short stories and satirical articles have been published by Hooked, Slackjaw, The Belladonna Comedy, and Points in Case. Both were also genuinely overwhelmed by what was happening to them and while they weren't always the best with communication or extending grace to each other, they do learn more about the other as their forced proximity continues. Because everytime he did any of them things the words 'toxic masculinity' where thrown all over the place and he was shouted at, shot down, emotionally manipulated.