1.5 Stars
I'm starting this review and I truly have no idea what my rating should be. Clearly, this book is not written for a reader like me. I've read Amelia Hutchins in the past and love her Nine Realms series - I feel like I'm always saying that as I rate her other books 2 stars - but it's truly interesting to me that I haven't found any other books of her that I enjoy while the Nine Realms may be one of my favorite series?? And yes, I read the very thorough warning at the beginning of this book, but I still wish this would have been toned down a couple of notches because it could have been SO good.
The premise itself is why I wanted to read this, even after reading the warning at the beginning. That warning is there for a reason! This entire book is one red flag after another, to the point where it's entirely over the top and I don't understand why it had to go SO far. It's incredibly dark and honestly f*cked up. At some points I genuinely could not believe what I was reading, but at the same time I couldn't put this down because I was so intrigued.
I've had this complaint reading Bulletproof Damsel, but right off the bat if felt like I started this book at 50% of the way through, but I was only on page one. I felt like I missed a previous book or something, because at times I didn't have the background to know what was happening. Considering how dark and intense this is from the very beginning, I would have liked some connection to the characters. I never fully got a grasp on who they are, especially Khaos.
The plot is a bit muddy but essentially we have Khaos Nasir and Aderyn. They are soulmates who were cursed by the gods. Aderyn is cursed to be reborn over and over again, never remembering who she was or who Khaos is. To top that off, every time she's reborn it's into an incredibly horrible family/situation (think r*pe, molestation, etc...). Khaos is an incubus, but if he ever f*cks Aderyn, she will be dead forever (aka, not reborn... I think). He can never have the one he truly wants, but he has to have sex bc he's an incubus and will go mad without it. Then Aderyn hates him for that reason alone, because he will never be with her but can never explain why. Then, one of Khaos' men (who Aderyn was actually with in the past then left when she met Khaos (her soulmate)) is cursed to only be able to have sex with Aderyn. So yeah, super messy and it's never explained why that curse is in place. Basically, Aderyn did something really bad and the gods cursed her and everyone in their circle as punishment. Oh - and there's something that if Aderyn and Khaos ever do get close enough/fall in love - they are cursed to hate one another. It's all very confusing, and not clearly explained.
At the time this story takes place, Aderyn is 300 years into her most recent life and has her love/hate relationship with Khaos. Then 99% of the book is just grotesque situations, people dying, people hunting her, flashbacks to horrible torture Aderyn has endured, etc. Honestly, I'm not sure what even happened with the plot, I was too distracted by all the gore, sex, and unhinged things happening. Somewhere in the midst of all of this I did comprehend that Aderyn is trying to take down Khaos' like immortal mafia (?). He's building this said mafia/syndicate for reasons unknown (something to do with breaking the curse, but I have no idea how). No spoilers, but then we have the ending and it feels like the next book with just be restarting at the beginning..?
Also, I hate this whole "sharing" thing. And Khaos has to/does share Aderyn with other men... quite a lot. And those situations happen in front of others, including the guy who is in love with Aderyn and needs to have sex with her to not go crazy. Honestly, for that reason alone I kind of hate the book and ~maybe~ could have dealt with the rest a bit better.
Truly, if the plot was more flushed out and less repetitive and the unhinged torture and things were dialed back even like 20% + toss out the sharing stuff (which was odd just for the fact that Khaos seemed to possessive of Aderyn) - I would have probably enjoyed this. Yes, that's a long list of corrections but I really wanted this to work!
Argh - overall I guess I'll just say I can't recommend unless you're looking for and enjoy this type of thing. It's clearly not for me. But at the same time I want to read the next book just to see what happens??