The first book in this series is not perfect, but I read it because I enjoyed the interplay between the main characters. For book two, the same happened: great interplay between the main characters but then things fell apart beyond that.

Calladia Cunnington is the mayor’s daughter and the mayor has clear expectations for how Calladia should behave, expectations which do not include wearing athleisure and enjoying a casual brawl. Moments after book one ends, book two starts with Calladia finding the enemy demon from book one, Astaroth, injured and without his memories, in a ditch having had his butt kicked by another demon. Calladia intervenes before she realises who the injured party is. Once she realises that it is her nemesis in need, she’s torn between leaving him in the ditch and trying to help him.

She decides to help him but she doesn’t want to publicise that she’s helping the demon who tried to take her best friend’s soul, so she does it all in secret. Turns out, though, that this was not some standard fight that Calladia interrupted. Astaroth has been banished from the demon plane and his enemy, Moloch, is intent on destroying him, even if Moloch has temporarily scarpered after Calladia’s intervention. Cue a quest to get Astaroth’s memories back and find a way to defeat Moloch once and for all.

First, the things I liked about this book. I really liked Calladia’s anger. In the book it says, “Calladia didn’t want to date some burly brute. She wanted to be the burly brute,” and that is the kind of female rage I enjoy reading. For example, she finds a friendly brawl with werewolves really lightens her mood. She lifts weights and enjoys building muscle. Delightful! The witty repartee between Calladia and Astaroth kept me entertained for a mostly happy afternoon. Astaroth’s biting British wit melds well with Calladia’s forthright anger and more prosaic bite.

Unfortunately, that’s kind of where my enjoyment ended. Although it must be said that those two positives kept me reading when typically I don’t persevere through books. I am quick to DNF, and without Callidia’s rage, I would have stopped reading.

I didn’t like how uncharacteristically distant her friends were at the start of this book, especially after their relationship was so different in the first novel. Calladia’s house is blown up and she wants to manage the situation by herself (with a secret Astaroth thrown in). Why are her friends letting her disappear into the wilderness ‘alone’ when they were so close-knit in book one?

There’s also more twee whimsy in this book than I like. For example, there are some misunderstandings when a griffin innkeeper gets words garbled around her beak. Or, another example: Astaroth’s mom, Lilith, has a reputation for writing tentacle fanfic on AO3. Maybe the humour just isn’t for me.

For me the biggest problem was the final third of the book.

In terms of growth, Astaroth, stripped of his memories, has a fresh chance at life and so his coldness from book one doesn’t come back. His wry commentary is a constant, but there is warmth there, too. Unfortunately for me, Calladia’s growth really amounts to going no contact with her nightmare of a mother, which is growth, no doubt, but I would have liked her to grapple a bit more with her anger and where it comes from (as delightful as it is to read). The solution for Calladia’s issues with her mother, much like the overthrowing of an entire political system with one single protest, seemed too simple given the described complexity of the problems.

Don’t get me wrong, I read this book in an afternoon, cover to cover. But there were too many moments that pulled me out of the story and had me puzzling. I wasn’t able to remain immersed in the story which is a big no for me. But again, I did read it cover to cover and didn’t DNF it, which must count in my estimations here. My ‘boring’ collection is about two-fifths of my entire Kindle library so I’m not shy with a DNF. Overall, I find myself right in the middle of the grading scale here. I wouldn’t recommend it to friends and you certainly need to read book one first, but I might possibly read the next book in the series if there is one.