Thank you so much to Henry Holt and Co. for sending me an e-arc as well as a finished copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are still my own.

I seem to be in the minority here but I really did not like book... This had loads of elements that I normally love - a gothic setting, demons, morally grey characters, enemies to lovers romance, etc. But in the end, this book just fell really short in execution.

I want to preface this review, by saying I'm very much so a character driven reader. And while I enjoyed the gothic elements of this book as well as the some of the darker, spooky elements, there wasn't much to keep me engaged while reading because I felt like the character development was severely lacking.

My biggest complaint about this novel was the pacing. I felt like there wasn't a good balance to where the time and emphasis was spent. There were overly descriptive scenes of the manor, or a party, or patch of trees in the woods - but major plot elements, like character interactions or confrontations, were rushed through.

And that lack of exploration made me feel distant from the entire story. None of the character choices made sense because I didn't know any of them. Each character seemed to have 1 main 'thing' that made up the entirety of their personality, and not much was explored beyond that. So in the end, I didn't care one way or another about any of their relationships or outcomes.

Unfortunately, despite the open ending of this book, I don't plan to continue on with the series.