Reviews with content warning for Physical abuse - Her Soul to Take

Look the smut in this is so spectacular. Was the plot spectacular? Not as much, and the ending kinda made it pointless? BUT the relationship was great, and the alley? And the marking? Chefs fucking kiss, grade A, sell my soul level smut.

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aflowers93's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I absolutely love a boom with a great plot and a good amount of spice! This was amazing!

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koistyfishy's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I am not catholic, but I feel like I need to see a Priest about confession and splash some Holy water on my face to cleanse me of my sins. I am not going to be ashamed to say that this book is deliciously dirty and salaciously sinful. But seriously whilst it does have a fair few mentions of Demons and Magic and a total badass "vibe" of spooky-darkness, the real darkness comes from the lustful icing on the kink-filled cake. There was kink in here that I didn't even know existed! But OH BOY, I feel like I have gotten a full-on education, and can I just say that I paid SUCH GOOD attention in the class that if you asked me to write a test on it RIGHT NOW - I am sure I'll pass with an A+.

This story follows our goth "Velma" look-alike Raelynn, who returns to a small family cabin in the woods in the town of Abelaum with her cat Cheesecake after her parents have decided they no longer want to live on the US side of the Atlantic and move to Greece. Of course, Rae is "Not like the other girls" and has this paranormal obsession that finds Ghost Hunting in abandoned buildings "Fun". In town, she meets Leon, a campus security guard but he is not what he seems. Unknown to her Leon is actually a Demon, enslaved to a cult in the town that wants nothing more than to sacrifice Rae to their long lost "Cthulhu-look-alike-mine-shaft" God. But Leon does not want Rae to be sacrificed. No...he wants her Soul and wants to keep her as his new shiny toy - to break her and make her scream.

Rae, is the epitome of Too Stupid to Live, and as Leon once said, "Damn woman's sense of self-preservation is broken". She has the common sense of a rock which is equivalent to the stupid girl in a Horror Movie. You know the one that suggests everyone should split up and instead of running out of the house, she wanders down into the basement alone.

Daddy Leon is taken directly out of the trope handbook for "I hate everyone but you". At times he is an asshole, I mean he is a Demon. But if he told me to bend over and beg you wouldn't find me saying "Mercy" any time soon. Any man that is going to run out into the night and fight a monster and PROTECTS YOUR KITTY is an OK MAN in my book. Also Harley Laroux, this review would have been a WHOLE lot different if Cheesecake died. I can handle a LOT of triggers...BUT DON'T YOU DARE KILL A CAT!

Speaking of cats...I absolutely LOVED the cat-and-mouse game between Leon and Rae. The chemistry between the two oozes off the page and you can feel the tension and constant push and pull between the two. I also liked that all their interactions were driven by mutual consent.

This book also has a fantastic balance of smut vs plot. Often times one could overbalance the other and you are either left unsatisfied with one, or the other. In this book, the smut enhances the plot, they work in perfect tandem and I can say that I am blissfully content with both. They were both captivatingly enticing and highly enjoyable!

Overall I highly recommend this book if you want something kinky and dark to read. It was everything I needed it to be to cure me of the HEADACHE my last book caused, so can imagine it would probably cure a "reading slump". It has romance, action, obsession, suspense, hot steamy scenes and a lot of kinks I am sure there will be something in there for everyone...

BUT PLEASE PLEASE read the trigger warnings in this before you pick this up. I understand this is a work of fiction and not a reality. My rating and enjoyment level of the book doesn't mean I'm agreeing or condoning the content. The book is not meant for the weak-hearted so please read the TW carefully and decide if this would be something for you ❤️️

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weelasswithabook's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

CW: Ritual sacrifice, desecration of a corpse, horror elements, gore, violence, unaliving, drugging, needles, kidnapping, religious/cult fanaticism, claustrophobia

⭐ Demon romance
⭐ Horror erotic romance
⭐ Dark romance

🌈 Queer MCs

🌶️ Primal
🌶️ Humiliation/degradation
🌶️ Breath play
🌶️ Blood play
🌶️ Body modification (piercing)
🌶️ Toys

I was scared to read this book, I'm not going to lie. I thought it was gonna be too dark, I thought I wasn't going to vibe with the romance, so it took a lot for me to push myself to start.

I've never been more glad to have took the plunge. What I had envisioned as a twisted, dark, and brutal horror story of a romance, actually turned out to be somewhat the opposite.

The horror and gore elements of this book was pretty much what you should expect from modern horror. A mixture of psychological, violent and paranormal elements really gave the sense of fear and anxiety that was needed to fully encompass the subgenre of erotic horror, while maintaining the plotline so not to veer into eroticA.

The writing in the book was wonderful, from the atmospheric description of setting, to the more grotesque descriptions of the paranormal, combined with a dual POV which had two very clearly defined narrations, it just all meshed together so well.

As for our MCs, I'm not gonna lie, Rae started to grate on me a little about 1/3 of the way through. I felt she was selfish and just kept putting herself in danger without any regard for Leon. But when we see her development throughout, that really allowed for us to see just how far she'd come in the opposite direction, with her willingness to suffer for HIS safety.

I do love seeing a morally bankrupt hero struggle with his feelings though!! Oh how he wanted desperately not to feel for her. Again, with his backstory, he has valid reasons to avoid catching feelings so I loved that we had that there as a frame of reference instead of the standard "uh I just don't like feelings" that we often get from morally questionable heroes. It added further layer to his character, and I loved watching him develop a softness for Rae, particularly at a certain point in the book where he performs a rescue (IYKYK) on her behalf. And the chemistry between the two was 🔥

I will say, if you're someone who's not comfortable with kink or edgeplay, this is probably not going to be for you as there is some intense situations going down in that respect, so proceed with caution.

Overall, I think (especially for a subgenre I've never explored) this was masterfully done. I was so scared going into this that I had no idea there was actually going to be quite a tender love story woven through the horror and the kink. And the kink and eroticism wasn't there just for titillation or for shock value. It was clear, regardless of his moral standing, Leon was an absolute stickler for consent at each and every interaction. There was also a level of development for Rae's character through these interactions, especially as insight was provided as to how her exploration of kink was freeing, knowing there was safety while she was experiencing fear. There's a particular line where she describes her fear but acknowledges how Leon was her safety, and it was 😘👌

A demon looking for freedom, a woman looking for safety, both managed to find that in each other 😭 Also, yes I did cry a few times through this. I wasn't expecting the emotional reactions and responses I had from reading this. 100% would recommend this if you're not sensitive to the aforementioned triggers.

Content Warnings

cluckieduck's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Seems I’m in the minority with this one, but I just felt there was something…lacking.

Rae, my god. Talk about TSTL. And she was given SO MANY “quirky” traits which never ended up going anywhere. I enjoyed Leon to a degree, but again, more could have been done with his character. He was introduced as a bully character, but only for a whisper of time where it could have been fleshed out into a really exciting dark romance. Overall just meh.

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