Some people have monsters for a boss, but not everyone has an undead Necromancer Lord at the office.
Lily has been the Lich's secretary ever since his evilness took over the company. She loves her job, but she's got some questions about her boss. Like what's under that cloak of ever-billowing.
Her wondering intensifies when one day the Lich needs something from her that isn't just scheduling appointments-- but a shiver. He needs it for a spell, but it feels like it crosses a line from their usual workplace banter. After her contributions to his dark rituals become more than OSHA compliant, she starts to contemplate whether the Lich Lord returns her feelings, or still only sees her as his secretary.
Lily may have given him her body, but he never asked for her heart.
Love, Laugh, Lich is a M/F office monster romance with light comedic elements, roughly 17k words. Content notes will be on the author's website.
It seems that even in the monster realm, you can’t avoid toxic bosses…this was mildly gross monster smut and not much else. It completely lacked relationship development and was mostly descriptive sex with a Lich (whatever the fuck that is) and a virgin-turned-cock-hungry receptionist. I cringed for most of this, but sometimes it was funny when the Monster-man was a bit dorky or when Janice from HR made appearances. His peen(s) was creative, but yikes, I’d run screaming if that thing came at me. 😱
I wished it had a full story with a great plot rather than a mindless short one because, honestly, it felt like the writer had great imaginative skills and visions and could have developed more with this fiction if she had the chance.
Oh, and I never read about having multiple appendages in any book before, which was quite interesting.😉
This had a lot of potential to be great but it fell flat imo.
I was…bored? I didn’t feel a connection between the two MCs at all, so I’m reading these scenes and I’m going, “okay, next?”
I do love the concept and the humor was great. The author definitely is witty. The incorporation of monsters and humans into something as mundane as office work is great. I just hope the next book is better.
This was delightful. A steamy and unintentionally (I think) funny office romance between a secretary and her boss. I think this would have been a five star read for me had we had the hero’s POV and an epilogue. It ended a little abruptly and I also wanted to know that they’d be together forever…ya know since he’s undead and she’s not. But overall, pretty cute.
First off, thank you so much to the author for reaching out to me to send me an ARC. I'm absolutely in love with the world of this novella.
My only critique is that I wish it were a few chapters longer, both because I enjoyed it so much and I'm selfish but also because the final chapter felt like it ended a bit too early.
The chemistry between our cloaked lord of darkness and Lily, one of the employees at his evil domain/office building filled with cubicles, was very clear in this highly humorous and quick read. I loved the mundane office setting being the headquarters for magical and mystical dark magic where the main recurring nuisance is a new "chosen one" coming in to kill the Lich and save the world. This entire cycle of failed quests being background to an office romance involved in magic rituals was just fantastic.
This story has me excited to read more from Kate Prior.
If you are interested in any of the following themes/ tropes, this book is for you! 😈 Novella length office romance (All-powerful Lich CEO and his personal assistant) 😈 Hilarious setups 😈 She goes above and beyond for her boss 😈 Sex Rituals 😈 Multiple... appendages 👀 😈 Can someone without a heart love?
Lily is fabulous at her job and takes pride in that. When the Lich she serves needs something as simple as a shiver, of course she's going to offer it. But that shiver could very well ruin everything by revealing certain impossible feelings that the personal assistant in question has been harboring about her evil overlord.
This book made me laugh with its funny setting of an office environment with a literal Dark Lord CEO. The chemistry between the characters is adorable and I enjoyed their relationship progression. Always say yes to multiple appendages.
I didn’t know what a lich was going into this, but I’m glad that didn’t stop me from reading because this was so fun, quirky AND steamy. And such a clever premise!
You know those office romances where everyone is afraid of the ruthless CEO except for his sweet and innocent secretary? And he asks her for a borderline indecent favour? This book is that, except the fear actually makes sense because the MMC is literally an undead evil lord. And the favour is a ‘shiver’ for a spell.
I found the corporate America vibe mixed with monsters incredibly entertaining.
Is this the best written? No. Is it a little rushed and could have used a longer treatment? Yeah. Is the premise fun? Yes. Is it kinda bananas and odd? Yup. Is our monster proper monstery? Yessss. Was it enjoyable to read? Absolutely.
A light little rom-commy office romance in the times of the apocalypse, when the boss is a Lich lord with surprising anatomy hiding under his cloak.
Anyway - Love, Laugh, Lich was super fun and steamy. Hit my humor aesthetic in a fabulous way, hoping there will be a bonus chapter/epilogue.
Some of the office dynamics was a bit eeee, I'm worried about consent/HR stuff here but then I reminded myself b, this is an actual dark lord and the world is not what we know here. Just go with it, and I did, and I had fun.
The last chapter ended SO abruptly mid-coitus that I was left a titch grumpy, so do be warned.
CW: office dynamics, office sex, ritualistic sex (discussed and thought to have happened), fangs, horns, tri-penis?
This was a cute little read where the MMC is a liche evil overlord and a dork, and the FMC is his dedicated personal assistant. The steam starts when she first volunteers to provide a “shiver” for him for a spell. She’s been working for him for 5 years, so they have enough background together for what feels like instalove. I’m just always so frustrated when they don’t tell you what the solution is for a immortal + mortal couple. Ugh.
Spice: 3ish scenes
Triggers: I dunno, maybe mention of past evil deeds? Nothing detailed enough to make this not a cozy read, in my opinion.
Short but sweet. Charming office romance between an assistant and the new Dark Lord in a (very low-key, not dramatic or dark) post-Lich takeover. Lots of office/HR jokes. Steamy smut. You really get it all with this quick feel-good read. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I adored this little novella! It's such a fun mixture between romcom, smutty monster action, and office romance. This book has a great balance of comedy, sweetness, and spice! Definitely give it a read if you can appreciate a good wacky monster romcom.
Thank you to the author for reaching out to give me an eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review!
This was our first book of 2023, and it didn't disappoint! It's a short little workplace romance with a hefty dash of monster spice. Lily is the titular lich's executive assistant. The Evil Overlord really appreciates her color-coded spreadsheets, and Lily appreciates what a great boss he is. In fact, she's found herself wondering what he looks like under that billowing cloak. As our friend Sam puts it, the book "is probably one of the best monster office romances of our generation - true romcom gold." We have to agree - sure, Soven is a horned lion-like creature with three 🍆🍆🍆 (who knows how to use them), but he's also a socially awkward dork of a boss AND HR's worst nightmare. The best thing about the book, though, is how easily Kate Prior maps corporate culture to the Evil Reign. She drops gems like "there's no ethical consumption under evil dominion," makes sure we know that unions are there to protect us from giving away more labor than is there in our contracts (like, say, a virgin sacrifice?), and that under the Evil Reign it's unlikely that the boss will face a wrongful dismissal suit even after tossing an employee into a bottomless pit. It's simultaneously hilarious, bonkers, and mundane. Come for the monster peen, stay for the riffs on late stage capitalism. We loved it.
12-Word Summaries: Meg: Lily’s working for the Man every day. Make that: the Necromancer Lord… Laine: Don't you hate bosses who keep you guessing about their corporeal form?
Fantastic monster office romance! So sweet and hot and funny, I loved every bit of it and the worldbuilding was perfect and so well done. And that’s not easy to do with a novella.
- - - Spoilers territory:
Omg I’m horrible but I was cracking up when Lich Lord Soven opens up a pit in the floor and pushes Randall in (he asks our FMC Lily on coffee date). And Lily is like wtf and the lich just says “downsizing” 🤣💀
My heart melted when he gave her his phylactery. 🥺
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Quick and light read with a lot of steam and humor. This was an unusual and quirky paranormal office romance between an evil lord and his personal assistant. He also has a little extra going on underneath his cloak. Told in first person, heroine’s POV. No ow drama, brief om drama where the boss gets jealous and reacts strongly, h is a virgin and no specifics on H, no bc used.
Love,laugh, lich could have been a deliciously sinful tale full of mystery and romance... IF the romance was more developt more like at all and the mystery was actually explained rather than be mentioned TWICE.... Someone is trying to kill this dude and we should just ignore it, because his triple dick is finally getting some with his secretary??? ... come on...
Moreover, the characters lacked any personality and all of them felt like the same person!
Also, the ending was so abrupt that i thought there was a problem with my ebook... all in all it felt like a promotion sample...
I honestly really enjoyed this book. It was unhinged and a little out there, but overall I really liked the story line. I love how it was an office romance.
It’s a novella so of course it was fast paced, but I do wish we got a little more story. I would have read the full version of this.
Note: Some of my goodreads shelves can be spoilers
Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Readability: 📖📖📖📖 Feels: 🦋🦋🦋 Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔 (This is a shorter story and I felt like I didn’t know much about either mains background) Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡ Romance: 💞💞💞💞 Sensuality: 💋💋💋💋 Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑🍑 Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥 Humor: Yes, it’s hilarious Perspective: first person from the heroine only except the very end of the book has POV of Janice, a side character More character focused or plot focused? charcacter How did the speed of the story feel? medium When mains are first on page together: immediately Cliffhanger: This ends with a happy for now for the mains Epilogue: No Format: listened to audiobook from the library (Hoopla) Why I chose this book: it was recommended by a member of our A Love Less Ordinary group when asked for monster romance Mains: This is a M/F relationship between a lich hero and human heroine (Descriptions found at end of my review)
Should I read in order? This is the first in Prior’s Claws and Cubicles series.
Basic plot: Lily begins to help her boss, the Lich, when she realizes he’s outsourcing for things for his ritual – like a shiver across skin. She has skin after all...
Give this a try if you want: - contemporary setting - monster romance - lich hero - workplace romance with employer/employee dynamic – she works for him (secretary/personal assistant) - never been kissed heroine - he gifts her flowers - medium steam – 2 full scenes in a shorter page count
Ages: - I didn’t catch either
First line: I never knew working at an office job would be this soul sucking.
My thoughts: This book was SO fun! I liked it so much more than I was expecting. The writing was great and it was steamy and hilarious. My only knowledge of liches comes from fighting them in Oblivion lol and this one was so enticing once he….derobed. This made me want to read all the Kate Prior books! Super fun.
Few random reading stats for this author # of books read: This is my first Average rating from me: 5 stars Favorite book: This one by default
Cock/Hero Stats:
Content warnings: (This should be taken as a minimum because I could have missed some!)
Locations of kisses/intimate scenes, safe sex, consent, pregnancy/child in the story:
Extra stuff like what my review breakdowns mean, where to find me, and book clubs
Full break down on what my ratings above mean here: Overall: How I felt about it everything considered! Readability: How ‘readable’ was the book? Did I fly through it? Did I have to tell myself to pick it back up repeatedly? Were any passages confusing? (I will probably score like (1) is literally unreadable due to formatting/typing errors, etc (2) There were lots of errors that made it difficult to read OR It was extremely confusing and I had to reread passages to make sense of it OR I disliked it so much I had to bribe myself to keep reading (3) I didn’t really want to keep reading and would have preferred to abandon the read and start something else OR some minor continuity issues/confusion (4) I liked it fine, maybe a minor error or 2. I was happy to pick it up when I had time. (5) I never wanted to put this down. I thought about it when I wasn’t reading it. I hid in the bathroom from my kids to read. I threw inappropriate food at my children for dinner so I could read instead.) Feels: Totally subjective to each person but did the book give me any tingles? Any butterflies? Did it rip my heart out (in a good way?) Emotional depth: How well do I feel I know the characters at the end? How much did I feel their emotions throughout the story? Sexual tension: Again, subjective, but how strong was the wanting and longing to me between the characters? A book might have strong sexual tension without a single touch. Romance: Was there romance? Did romantic things happen? This can be actions/words/thoughts of the characters and again is subjective. Sensuality: This is how the intimate scenes are written. Kisses and sexual scenes – how sensual were they? Were they on the mechanical side? Was there emotional pull tied in? Were the details explicit or flowery? These are subjective but generally (1) too short to get a good judgement (2) not all what I'm looking for - very vague or flowery prose (3) either not explicit enough or not enough emotional pull (too mechanical/physically descriptive without the emotions) (4) what I love in a scene (5) absolute perfection - perfect balance of emotional longing and explicit descriptions Sex Scene Length: How long the bedroom scenes are (generally (1) is 1-3 sentences (2) is a few paragraphs to a page-ish (3) is about average, a few pages (4) more well developed scenes, quite a few pages with descriptions (5) the majority of the book takes place in the bedroom. This is always hard to tell for me on audio! Steam Scale: Generally, each flame is a scene. If scenes are super close together I sometimes combine them. If a scene is super short or so vague I don’t know what’s happening, I don’t count it. There’s some levels of grey but generally the number of flames is how many sex scenes there are (I max out at 5 so I’ll put a + after if there’s more than that)
Not gonna lie, when I heard there were extra appendages in this story, I couldn’t help myself, couldn’t stop my curiosity from making me one-click. No judgies.
If this short story was meant to bring out the laughs, with no emotion or feelings and very little swooning, then it did its job. At times I felt I was missing something. I wanted/needed more. It was…interesting to say the least. I think if I would’ve been able to connect with the Lich Lord, maybe I would’ve enjoyed this more?
The idea of an office romance combined with monsters intrigued me so I had to try LOVE, LAUGH, LICH and it certainly got a few chuckles out of me. I liked Lily as a character but we don't know a whole lot about her or the world. There are a few hints dropped about when the Dark Lord took over but it's very unclear what that actually means for the greater world outside the Evil, Inc. offices. I also wish we learned more about Soven because all we really know is that he's occasionally a dork and he has some interesting monster anatomy.
Lily spends a lot of this novella worried that she doesn't mean anything to Soven and that she's just a means to an end for his rituals but honestly, I'm not sure if Soven means anything to her. She only seems to be interested in his physical attributes and when I finished this book I wasn't completely sold on their feelings. It also ends a bit abruptly so that was jarring.
All that being said, I do plan to read book 2 because I enjoyed Kate Prior's writing style and I can see the potential in this series and set up.
2.5 stars. Lily is a personal assistant to Soven, the Dark Lich Lord. Her boss is undead and she can’t stop wondering what’s under his black robes. Soon she finds out and gets a major surprise when she sees he has 3 🍆🍆🍆!
So this read was kind of strange because the world/setting didn’t make much sense. Corporate world but with talk of an economic collapse, social upheaval, and the Dark Reign of Terror, with the lich hero now her boss. She starts helping him out with magic-collecting by offering up things for him to collect like her shivers and first kiss. He gets possessive, in a kind of sweet way? Guess I just wanted more plot or something to the story to keep me interested, because the characters and story kind of fell flat for me. 🤷🏼♀️
I loved it! It was a funny and light and well written novella about office romance between the Dark Lord that conquered the world/CEO and his personal assistant. Honestly, it made me laugh on multiple occasions xd