Dude what the actual fuck was this book?! I was SO looking forward to this book, the rest of this series is absurd and idiotic, but in a fun way. I mean, I don’t expect high literature, this is a smut book about a woman dating 3 killers who occasionally like to don Halloween masks, I know what I’m getting myself into. But this one somehow was even worse than the first one and significantly less fun. I only found this series last year, so I only had to wait a year for this entry, but some of the others claim this took two years to come out and truly, two years?! For what?!? This shit is less than 200 pages, there is basically zero semblance of a plot, and the smut isn’t even fun, like what in the heck is this???
So this takes place immediately after the events in the last novella/last book, so this is January, MEANING, this girl only met these psychos on Halloween so they’ve straight up only known each other for a little more than 2 months, THAT IS BONKERS!! The boys are fully aware Quinn is being stalked by the rival cult, the Hallowed Devine, the one Damien’s dad is in, and yet they don’t tell her anything, just keep on keeping on, even when girls in her neighborhood start to go missing. Micah, our Michael Myers mask, takes Quinn on a date to get her mind off it, they fuck in his car, and then he is the first to admit he loves her and it’s reciprocated, I just don’t even know what I’m reading. Micah always had the loosest tie to Quinn for me, he seemed far more wrapped up in Jensen (Jason Vorhees mask lol) so every time I have to remember they’re all obsessed with Quinn, it feels weird. TBH any time any of these boys interact with Quinn alone, other than Damien (ghostface mask) feels so weird because genuinely NONE of the work is put into making any of these relationships work and it shoooowwsss.
The best relationship is probably Micah and Jensen, but even they felt super forced here. Like Jensen is a bit hurt when he finds out Quinn is the first person ever Micah’s ever admitted to being in love with, and yeah fair enough, these two have far more feelings and YEARS of loving each other (though they only recently acted upon these feelings) so I get that. But of course Micah plays the whole ‘she’s the first person I TOLD not the first I’ve loved’ to make up for it, sure fine, whatever. Then they have this weird moment of Damien walking in on the boys and he makes some comment and there’s this weird heat between him and Micah and it’s SOOOO out of nowhere! Don’t get me wrong, we all know I’m the #1 shipper of queer men, especially sprinkled into my smut and especially in a why choose dynamic, but these two came out of nowhere. None of this existed before it’s shoehorned in here. Damien having interest in Quinn he’s always acted as it’s an anomaly, so he has zero interest in the boys and tbh I’m fine with that. He can be chill with sharing, but not need to sword cross with any of the boys. But now out of nowhere these two have ‘always’ had feelings for each other?!! Nuh uh, no you don’t. Straight up Jensen asks Micah about it later and Micah’s like ‘whaa nooo’ and then Jensen’s just like, yup you do and it’s mutual’ and when the boys find out about Damien’s lies he’s like ‘I hurt them, but especially Micah which hurts the worse’ SINCE WHEN?! And it leads to Quinn just inherently knowing Damien feels this way and asking if he wants to fuck Micah instead of her during their group sex, IT’S SO WEIRD!!! WHY??! Again, I’m all for this type of thing, but this is so unearned!!!
Look, I knew Doyle is not a good writer, these are all entirely self-published (I’m pretty sure) and the dialogue is so painful it’s honestly hysterical. But at least the smut was fun, at least the concept was amusing, and there seemed to be a point. It’s depraved, but there’s a point! But somehow she’s regressed in this book! Her attempts at world building are laughably horrid, her plotting makes zero sense, and it’s like she’d forget this is a smut book so she’d bend over backwards to force in these ridiculous scenes to allow for smut content because it just doesn’t make sense! Also it’s hilarious Quinn is confused when she finds out she’s being stalked and threatened, like dude, what did you think the carved pig head on your doorstep was for?!?! And what was the plan of these boys by keeping her in the dark?? She already knows your murderers (though she pretends to not know here which is wild, like she’s all ‘I knew their rep was bad but I didn’t know it was this’ GIRL HE BROUGHT YOU A BLOODIED MASK OF YOUR EX ABUSER! They stabbed kids in front of you when you first met, what are you talking about?!), but she pretends to be shocked when they’re involved in fucked up shit. Truly how dumb can you be??
So after all this wait and the most cobbled together shlock of a plot, we only really learn two things of note in this book. Quinn’s mom isn’t her mom, which makes a little sense after how weird and sketchy she acted last book when she found out about Damien. Turns out she’s her bio mom’s sister and she promised her she would raise Quinn and keep her safe, hence why she’s been under the watch of the Order of the Unseen for ages and hence why she knows the boys. Still doesn’t explain why the boys decided this year of all time to break their oaths (of protecting her and keeping away from her, I guess) and move in to be with her, they just did, I really can’t logic this book. Her real mom was murdered and her real dad is the head of the bad cult, hence why they’re so determined to murder her since they’re all about killing the kids of their members, awesome.
The other wild reveal is Damien’s had a twin brother this entire fucking time, yup even the boys who’ve been friends with him for YEARS didn’t know, and he’s in the bad cult alongside the dad. BUT he also hates the dad (and Damien for reasons unknown as of now, but they were separated for ages again for reasons unknown, probs just retconned since he didn’t exist before this book) and was basically raised by Quinn’s bio mom and is also protecting Quinn. Pretty sure he’s the one who fingered Quinn and saw her flash her boobs when she thought he was Damien, oof. I REALLY hope he doesn’t also get involved with Quinn in the future because fucking twins is sooooo weird, like I know this series is fucked up enough but really, can we not??? Also get this, the twin’s name is Omen…get it…cuz Damien’s name is the same from the kid from THE OMEN, I CAN’T MAKE THIS SHIT UP!! He was honestly really funny and just blatantly told Quinn everything the boys have kept from her this entire time, just like ‘oh did you not know?’ hahhaa stupid.
Oh, I also gotta talk about the majority of Damien’s plot and their bonkers sex scene. So when Damien finds out some of the bad cult dudes made contact with Quinn and almost got into her room, he tracked them down and lost his ever loving shit quite literally murdering them by beating them to death. This caused him to kind of black out and go on almost a week long murder bender blackout, straight up this dude just gets so filled with rage he loses time and all sense of reason and goes on a spree. The other boys just follow him, clean up his messes, and hope he doesn’t get hurt, LIKE WHAT?! Then when they’re too busy kissing each other, he just goes home to Quinn who fairly is like, wtf you’ve been gone for almost a week and answered none of my texts or calls. Then he proceeds to fuck her, but without any of his humanity so it’s weird and rough. He brings out the knife he used to kill everyone and just rubs it all over her, not enough to break skin but to be super fucked, I think he does prick her at one point and he’s all ‘I murdered people for you, everything I do is for you’ and she’s like ‘PROVE IT’. So what does this psycho do?! He straight up carves her initials into his hard dick….I’M NOT EVEN JOKING!! Then he proceeds to fuck her with the same cock while they’re like covered in blood! LOL WTF?!?! First off, ew! Second, pretty sure human bodies are VERY unsanitary so I cannot imagine the germs getting into these fresh wounds, bro his dick is gonna fall off from this shit, wtf?!? Utterly bonkers, I cannot!!
So yeah, otherwise that’s basically the entire book, truly so little happened and also the complete lack of their masks and normal smut moments or any development? Oof, I am baffled at how much worse this could be, I didn’t think it was possible. I still laughed my ass off at multiple parts because this shit is so bad it’s hilarious, but it wasn’t nearly as fun as the other entries of this insane series. I find it so insane this took her two years to come up with, THIS! Truly how?!? I feel like I created more comprehensive fanfic when I was in middle school, like c’mon girl. It’s still entertaining enough for what it is and I’ll definitely read on whenever she decides to write more, but yeah I’m more than a little letdown by this entry and the bar was already so low.