Harris and Grant are both raised in an orphanage. They’ve known the cruelty of beatings, starvation and falling in love. When they run away into the dark woods, they come across a cottage made completely of sweet treats. What could one taste hurt? It stirs the handsome witch that lives inside. Fearing his wrath, they run straight into the brutal orphanage owner. Their unlikely hero is none other than the witch but does the handsome magician want to save them or devour them? As it turns out, a bit of both.
When the cottage the witch is bound to is set on fire, the guys must a make a terrible decision. For the only way the witch can be free is by eating one of their hearts.
The COX took me on quite a ride in less than 75 pages here. Plus I’m a huge sucker for a fairytale and Don’t Bring a Cannibal to Dinner is reminiscent of the classic originals that have a much darker side and that entertain me to no end.
Harris and Grant have been living a brutal existence in an orphanage that had no business taking care of children. The two have been one anothers only hope since they met as kids. The two are complete opposites and the dynamic between the two of them made for a sweet budding romance amidst all the misery.
Grant is big and strong, he’s survived by his wits and brawn and he lives to protect his best friend Harris. Harris is gentle and kind and he’s survived by flying under the radar. The two have grown up together and now that they are both on the cusp of adulthood, their relationship is evolving and while it’s obvious to the reader, the two of them are just figuring out as they go, that the love they feel towards one another is actually reciprocated.
Grant is close to aging out of the orphanage, but Harris is a month behind and there’s no way Grant is going to leave him there alone. So, the two of them make a break for it and their escape into the woods was very fairytale worthy. Spooky woods, hungry wolves, the specter of witches out there in the dark, it was all a great setup to the next chapter of their adventure.
Enter the witch!
So, Dec was not what I expected. I liked the guy. He was cursed and his story, once he told it, was quite sad. I really didn’t know where the story was going to go once he was introduced because he was a sympathetic character and I was getting kind of attached to him.
In the meantime, Grant and Harris are taking the full plunge into love and learning what that means emotionally and physically. It was a different set of circumstances than any COX characters that I have met in the past in that, these guys know virtually nothing going into this. It was really sweet and pretty damn steamy, reading them fumble their way through all the firsts that come with truly loving another person.
And then things went dark and sideways, just like I like. So, as I said, where is Dec going to go in this story? It would have been way too easy to make him a pure baddy from the get-go, so I appreciated the twist and the truly heartbreaking direction the story took. While I didn’t love it emotionally, I was thankful for the story taking me down that dark road, That’s the bit that gave me the old school fairytale feel I love. I had that great love/hate feeling when I was reading. I may not have been happy, but me being happy was not the point, a good story is the point and this made the story great.
But, the more modern fairytale is there too and a hard earned HEA was had by Grant and Harris. The ending was a welcome conclusion and showed how much the two had grown after everything they had been through. The wrap up was a truly fairytale level HEA and the bittersweet contrast between Dec’s story and Harris and Grant’s is balanced and makes for a perfect “The End”.
**A copy of this story was provided for an honest review**
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