I belong to a Demon Lord. His name is Roman. He’s tall, strong, has long dark hair, a deep sexy voice and, let me tell you, absolutely f-ing gorgeous. Yep. I even wear his ring. Third finger, left hand.
Except – its’s not a wedding band. Far from it, actually. It simply means I’m his submissive.
Well – it doesn’t really mean that either, although I wish it did.
No. The ring’s function is only to give me “sight”. Being human, once I had it on, I could suddenly see Roman’s stupid lost legions; very nasty scary things that would as soon kill me as look at me. And because I wear the ring, guess what? It’s now my job to recapture all those creatures for him. Yay me, right?
At least I get to be close to Roman… sometimes.
But, to tell you the truth, I was tricked into putting this damn ring on by Cathy, some random woman I met at a park, who unfortunately likes Roman, too. A whole lot. She brazenly flirts with the demon every chance she gets and right in front of me, too. Crap, it pisses me off. In fact, she brags she was the one who found me, got the ring on me and then offered me up to Roman like I was a T-bone steak or something.
Well – honestly – that part’s okay.
However, there’s something else going on. Something big. Because there’s another gorgeous Demon Lord in our little earth realm and he will stop at nothing to capture Roman’s loose legions for himself. Not only that, seems he’s out to catch me, as well.
Huh. My name is Micah and things just got very interesting.
I’ve read quite a few books by this author and have had a fun time getting caught up in the worlds she creates. The Oletti Shiftters series is a goodie! So, I knew I was a fan of her, generally angst free tales, and the paranormal ones specifically. Roman sounded very intriguing, how do you make a demon a romantic hero? I need to know these things.
Well, apparently a surefire way is to make the other MC less likable than a demon. The start of the book was strong and the paranormal aspect had a good level of creepy to get me hooked. Unfortunately, Micah, who should have been a sympathetic character, really wasn’t. I liked him until he interacted with other humans for the most part. The conversations didn’t flow and it felt like conclusions were jumped to on the regular. I felt like I must have missed integral portions to interactions that would have made some of the banter make more sense.
The demon side of the world building was confusing and I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the best at following along sometimes, especially when I’m wrapped up in characters, but since I really wasn’t this time around I ended up with a lot of unanswered questions. Why was Micah the chosen human? Why was the plant just around his house? The legions? I needed a better, more logical, fully fleshed out description of those things. I went through my notes on my Kindle and found I marked spots with just question marks after a while. I kind of just gave up and flowed with it all after a bit.
I wanted to root for Micah and Roman and I do believe the two of them were really into each other. I don’t really know why, but there was a lot of good lust flying around. Most of the time I forgot Roman was supposed to be a demon and probably some of that came from my preconceptions of what a demon should be. I expected more evil to be honest, not mentions of cuddling. I think I would have been way more accepting of Roman if he would have been just about any other paranormal creature. He definitely didn’t come across as evil or a tormentor from the fiery depths of hell. A little darker than some characters, sure, but not demonic. Micah referenced debating whether Roman was “good” or “bad” on multiple occasions and even said “Why were they so fucking secretive and devious and...and…”. I couldn’t help but think, “ummmm, DEMON, soooo, definitely bad and also DEMON, sooo, duh! But yeah, anything but a demon would have worked much better for me for the way Roman was written.
I could have done without Cathy completely. She was just a shell of a character and there to be the token woman bitch. Comments directed at her ended up being pretty sexist and unnecessary. I get she was the catalyst for a lot of the evil bits, but her presence cheapened said catalyst and detracted from Roman and Micah. I would have much rather read how the two of them truly connected rather than have her character muddy the waters.
My very last note was at 94% and it was “the answer to everything is ‘because’”. I can only work with that so much myself and really only if the rest of the book is strong enough that I just don’t care. Unfortunately Roman wasn’t strong enough for me, so the unanswered questions stood out. The typos didn’t help either, I didn’t need another thing pulling me out of the story.
Overall, Roman wasn’t a win for me. That doesn’t mean it won’t be for you or that I won’t be reading more from this author. One personal miss for me doesn’t make me forget how much I’ve enjoyed others books from this author and I look forward to reading more from her.
**a copy of this story was provided for an honest review**
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