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�� 2.25 stars ��

What to Expect:
�� She Ferries Ghosts
�� He’s the God of Death
�� Music Based Magic
�� He Falls First
�� Touch Her & Die
�� Haunted Forest
�� Mystery
�� Feminine Rage
�� Dark Red Riding Hood Retelling
�� Hades & Persephone Inspired
�� Dual Narration
�� Dual Third Person POV

A dark and atmospheric Red Riding Hood retelling with nods to Hades & Persephone. Reader’s familiar with JLA’s work, will also notice many similarities to From Blood & Ash.

Because of her magical singing voice, Rowan must serve a 5 year term ferrying the dead through the Dark Wood to the God of Death. She spent her childhood training to “please�� the God of Death and was expected to maintain her virginity to offer to him and eventually serve as a sacrifice to protect the rest of her people. The virgin sacrifice bit did not need to be included and frankly didn’t make a lot of sense. How did she “train�� to please him if she must remain pure? Don’t answer that. 😂.

With a plot like this, it was already going to be a hard sell for me, but the characters felt underdeveloped and the romance lacked any real spark. If you’re here for the “feminine rage�� promised, turn back now because you won’t find that here. I understand wanting to keep Aoife safe, but why not try to escape with her? The romance was very hot and cold on both sides. She planned to kill him so she was fighting her feelings the whole time and anytime there was any intimacy between them, he would say he couldn’t go further and then get all broody and run off and push her away for a few days. This cycle repeated itself several times, but I never really felt like they got to know each other or formed any real connection in the process. It all felt very immature and not at all what I would expect from the God of Death. I found myself counting the amount of times the word “devoured�� was used until I got curious enough to look it up. The total, forty-two times. Forty-two times that the author wrote about the wolf devouring her. 🙄 About 30 times too many in my opinion.

Ultimately, while this did promise, it didn’t quite win me over. I might still recommend this to those who love Gothic Fairytales. They are definitely not my preference so perhaps others will enjoy this more. I listened to the audio and I also struggled with the choppy feel of the dialogue. It is hard to say if this was the fault of the narrator or the way the dialogue was written, but I am leaning towards the latter.

Thank you to Libro.FM for the ALC in exchange for an honest review.

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Pre-read: haven’t requested many ARC’s/ALC’s in the past and now suddenly I have 7. 😅

Oops�� better get to reading!

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