⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
🌶🌶🌶/4

**Summary & Thoughts**

Jules is the head of her family, a powerful Enforcer witch, and the head of the New Orleans Coven. Ruben is the vampire overlord of New Orleans and reports directly to Jules.

Over a decade ago they met and had an instant connection. But back then, Jules was young and untested. She didn't yet have the respect of New Orleans or the greater witch coven councils. She was so worried about losing herself to Ruben that she had to break it off in order to save herself.

Fast forward and Jules has grown into who she wanted to be. She's powerful, respected, and finally feels like she knows herself. Ruben sees it too. He wasn't willing to let her go back then, but could see that she needed the time to grow. But oh boy is he finally done waiting. It's time to make his move.

The time for that move is also perfect, because they are forced to travel together for a few months to spread the message of werewolf acceptance to the international coven guilds. I've loved all of the NOLA content so far, but who doesn't love a trip to the UK!

**Spoilers start here**

It's always fun to see characters that you've seen throughout the other books and come to respect independently finally come together. The hints about them and their chemistry throughout the rest of the series have finally paid off!

As a second-chance romance, we know going in that these two have chemistry. It's all of the rest of it, the baggage, the history, the things that they've learned and the people they've become that they have to get over to finally be together again. We get a dual timeline of these two which was fun to explore, along with the dual POV. I loved seeing the evolution of Jules from a young and un-tested leader who needed the time to find her own place in the complicated and even dangerous world of paranormal leadership.

Ruben is a centuries old vampire, so he's learned the importance of patience. But even an old dog can learn new tricks. It's not just Jules that needed time to grow up and into herself, Ruben also needed time to see his own mistakes and really acknowledge the fact that he needs to communicate with her and support her choices instead of always taking the lead. It takes a strong man in a modern world to respect the rightfully earned authority of a woman. Seeing them come back together on a strong foundation of trust and support was the best part of their relationship, not to mention hello to the best power couple in NOLA!

Now take all of that personal and relationship growth... and add in a LOT of adventure. We have trips all over the US, UK, and even a stop over in Paris, not to mention vampire masquerade balls, new werewolf alliances, and dangerous rituals that threaten everything they're trying to build.

If you love second chances, or just great relationships based on communication, trust, and a guy who owns a rare bookstore for fun when he's not dealing with all of his vampire underlings ... this one is definitely for you!

**Author quirk: See full note on book 1 of this series... WE FINALLY HAVE STOPPED NAME DROPPING BRANDS. I don't know if it was the setting change to take place mostly in the UK or what, but thank god. The Author's continued use of brand names that didn't make sense finally stopped in this one and just really made everything better. Hoping it continues in book 6. ( )