Coming off of the first book in this standalone series, this feels a lot more mundane and incomplete... Our protagonist Claire isn't nearly as interesting as Brella from the previous book, her love interest Hudson feels like cardboard both before and after he gets possessed by the demon boyfriend of this story (a sentimental shadow demon named Midon, who goes by "Don" while possessing Hudson's body), and amazingly, even after Hudson's dark secrets get revealed, he's still boring... Midon at least is very sentimental compared to the demon in the first book of the standalone series, Thellvok - and him being more of a hopeless romantic that falls in love at first sight when Claire's playing with a Ouija board with her friends is a cute change. I wish we saw more of his perspective though, and I wish there were more interesting aspects of his character when it comes to feeding on darkness and possessing the body of a young man he knows Claire had an obvious crush on.

The plot is also a lot more mundane when compared to the first book, mostly consisting of our two college-aged protagonists skipping class to bond with one another, and a lot more could've been done with the whole possession aspect of the story. Really there's a lot of missing potential when it came to the idea of possession in this story... It's sad really. It's painfully mundane, and while the story takes place around Halloween, we never see Halloween proper, so I can't even say it's a good book to read around Halloween or fall to get you in that fall mood. A lot of spicy scenes too, but it's basically just two young people having fun and mashing their bodies together. Nothing exciting or emotional like the first book and the complex relationship that Brella and Thellvok had; and we see absolutely no balance between having to torture and feed on darkness, while also wanting to genuinely love and protect the love interest.

Really it just feels bland. It's a story with a lot of lost potential. The spicy scenes are fine, but they feel empty along with the rest of the story. ( )