Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - Prendi la mia anima

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.

Content Warnings

lh_reads's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Content Warnings

mellikesbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

It is time *tik tok audio* ~~(can't believe I wrote a whole essay for this book lmao)~~

I read this book almost two months ago and now I'm reviewing it because I needed to process it ~~(and also because uni has/had me by a chokehold).~~

So this was my first time reading a full-length novel by Harley Laroux and 👏SHE👏DID👏NOT👏DISAPPOINT👏. I enjoyed every moment reading this book and maybe it was good uni kept me busy so I could read this book in two weeks instead of my usual four days. Okay, here's the review:

So this trilogy will follow three different couples who are fighting against this cult who worship this evil God in the small town of Abelaum. Her Soul to Take follows paranormal investigator Rae who comes back to her hometown to try to revive her failed "youtube career" as she tries to find real proof about ghosts. Accidentally, she summons the demon Leon who's controlled by said cult; a cult that wants to sacrifice her to the God.

This book has a lot of good tropes: bodyguard trope, forced-proximity, I-hate-everyone-but-you, we-don't-exactly-like-each-other-but-we-want-to-get-railed-by-each-other... I mean, what else do you need to read this book??? Oh, and it has a lot of S/M scenes😆😆

As I said before, I loved this book. The writing was entertaining, the characters ~~(or I should say Leon and Zane)~~ were lovable, AND THE SEX WAS GOD-TIER. Do not ask me about the plot because then I will confuse it with Leon. But seriously, the paranormal plot was excellent. I really missed reading about small towns with dark secrets, and dark plots in general. Harley Laroux does not miss with the scary shit. Now, here's some other things that I liked/loved:

-THE SEX. Yes, I'm a reader who loves reading Erotica and makes my standards about sex unreachable. Every single sexual scene slapped; the writing, the sexual tension, the MF DIRTY TALK ~~(Leon, me next)~~, the kinks, the SCENES IN GENERAL, and don't even get me started where these characters fucked. Everything about the sex here was done right and it got ME blushing the whole way. No seriously, do yall know what it's like to have be blushing and have a big smile on your smile because the sex is sooo good? I also read this next to my mother, and thankfully, she didn't ask me about the book.

The sex has to be one of the best parts of the book ~~(especially the piercing scene, I kept thinking about it for DAYS).~~

-THE BDSM SESSIONS. Not only we got hardcore sex, BUT WE ALSO GOT SAFE SEX. I loved how there was communication between them and we got safewords, aftercare, condoms and lube, THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO SEE. THIS is what a sexual relationship should be like.

-THE POVs. Authors who give us dual-povs about the main characters have a special place in Heaven. Most of all, I loved Leon's pov because we got to see more about the cult and how his "demon-self" works. Both Rae and Leon had their own voices and reading different sides/opinions about the same story was wholesome in every way.

-RAE'S AND LEON'S RELATIONSHIP. Not only do they compliment each other in a sexual relationship (you could liteally cut their sexual tension with a knife), but also emotionally. I do have to admit I loved their banter more than them officially being in good terms, but seeing them have the best sex and the best fluff had my two hearts throbbing. My only issue with their relationship is that I wished Leon had used other endearments, like, if Leon had used words like "love" or "sweetheart" I would have passed away right there. I wish he hadn't
been so repetitive with "babygirl", but for him, I'm going to let it slide.

I also gotta say that I wished they didn't drop the L word because it's only been a few months

Now, the characters😏 (I am going to talk about my man last).

-RAE. I liked Rae since the moment she said she was a paranormal investigator who wanted to get REAL proof about the supernatural. If she wants an assistant, I'm here😁. Before I get into her character for real, I've gotta say a couple of things: 1) This bitch is brave as fuck to live in a house by the forest BY HERSELF and walking alone at night. 2) I get her point into to trying to get supernatural proof but if I had the chance to go to Spain, I'm going. 3) It's an absolute crime she didn't mention Buzzfeed Unsolved at least once.

As much as I liked her as a main character, I have to say that HL kinda forgot to flesh her out as much as she did with Leon and the world-building. I felt that her only personality was being stubborn, reckless, and being horny for Leon 24/7 ~~(and I don't blame her for the last one, because if I had that man in my life I would not think about anything else but him)~~. Though she bugged me because she didn't believe Leon about the twins being part of a cult, it is kind of understandable because if I accidentally summoned a demon who works as a security guard at my uni and he told me there's a cult after me, I wouldn't really believe him. ~~But if he's a blonde demon with piercings, tattoos and a forked tongue, I would believe whatever he says.~~

I guess it's just me for liking girlboss characters more than women who don't know how to defend themselves. Either way, we all know we'd be shitting ourselves if we were in Rae's place. Despite all that, I liked her character and you can bet I'll cheer for her when she makes her cameo in the next book.

-ZANE. OKAY LISTEN, I know he appeared like four times through the whole book but I'm already in love with him and no one can stop me. I literally blushed and giggled like a little girl when he said "Curiosity is dangerous. I've heard it kills pussies... is that the phrase?." Not gonna lie, I did love him more than Rae. I just can't wait to read his book and become more enamored with him than I already am.

-JUNIPER. Mommy? Sorry. Mommy? Sorry. Mommy? Sorry 👉👈👉👈👉👈.

-THE TWINS. I do not trust anyone who uses bodyspray. That's it. "Jokes" aside, I would have liked seeing more of Victoria. Except her brother, he can shove his 3-in-1 shampoo up his ass.

-EVERLY. I just know she's going to conquer the whole trilogy.

She's a powerful witch with an archdemon at her side, I mean????

-THE LOVE OF MY LIFE, aka, Leon. I dare you to look at me in my eye and tell me he isn't the best character of the book. I don't know if it's him being done with everyone, being a demon that magicians fear, his dirty talk, how sweet he is after sex... I mean, it's got to be something🙄🙄

I enjoyed his character the whole book and the Storygraph servers KNOW THAT. I've been thinking about this man for a whole month and I can't put into words how amazing he was. Unlike being your average demon, he acts and dresses so modern and he's pretty much tired of humans because they want him to kill everything. My two hearts were throbbing because of him. I loved his ruthlessness, how overprotective he was, and how he's the "I'm mean to everything except her" guy. There were also times he was so sweet and careful I dropped a tear.

~~I honestly wanted to sell my soul to him the whole book and be his doll for eternity. But if he wants a dog, I can bark too.~~

I could write a whole essay about him but I think my reading journal says enough.

Of course, there are some things in the book that I didn't like or felt neutral about:

-MISSING POVS. There were a lot of stuff regarding the antagonists that happened off-page and instead of giving us the scenes the author just dropped what happened and that's it. I don't know if HL wanted to keep the essence of the book mainly about Rae and Leon or if she didn't want to make the book too long, still, getting those scenes with the twins and their father would have made the book much better.

I guess it's just me but I was serious during the whole confrontation between Rae and the God. Like, I did care what happened to Rae of course, but I was neutral during the entirety of the scene except for when Rae, FINALLY, sold her soul to Leon; and when the God said Rae was going to suffer for eternity. My reaction was literally "ANYWAY".

-I felt the ending was a little anticlimatic. Don't get me wrong everything was packed up but I felt it could have been done better. But when it comes to Her Soul for Revenge, AMAZING HEADSTART.

If you got this far, give me your address and I'll send you lasagna. Nonetheless, do I reccomend this book? FUCK YEAH.

~~Now, don't mind me stalking Amazon's headquarters so I can get the HSfR paperback.~~

Content Warnings

annabelle's review against another edition

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dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Diverse cast of characters? No

3.0

I enjoyed this, but god did Rae get on my nerves at times. She has no sense of self preservation and puts herself in danger multiple times. At one point one of the side characters even says that she's a hassle to keep alive. Even with her stupidity at times, I didn't hate her. I loved Leon, and I liked Rae and Leon's relationship, which made up for the parts of the story I found annoying. Just be prepared to have some general stupidity from Rae in addition to some hot spicy scenes.

I was a little worried going into this that I wasn't going to enjoy it because of some of the kinks included, but I was pleasantly surprised. There is a good amount of consent present in each scene which I loved. I need more romance books to have more consent and safewords in them!!!

This was a good time and a fast read, so I would recommend if you can handle the content. I'm assuming the next book is going to follow Juniper, and I would love to read that. She seems like she has more self preservation braincells, so I think most of my complaints from this book would be solved from her POV.

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