Stephanie Hudson

First off, this is a side story that goes in-depth on two main secondary characters of the two main series "Afterlife" and "Whatever Lucian and Amelia’s Series is Named". It is a “Beauty and the Beast” type of retelling.

For veteran readers of Stephanie Hudson, let me say this. This is a DUET and no longer. No cliffhangers beyond this book, it is done in the second. YAY. Although she does do that soft scene break cliffhanger italicized sentence that got tiresome.

I am not going to show more rehash old complaints about the two main series because that has no bearing on this book. If you are interested, check them out. I must say one thing though, both of the series are done so the cliffhanger problem is solved. Also, this book doesn't rely on you knowing ANYTHING about the previous series so you can go in blind and still enjoy it. There is enough backstory and character descriptions that you won't get lost.

Now if you haven't read any other books by Stephanie Hudson, or stopped midway or maybe decided early on it wasn't for you for reasons beyond just the story then give this a try. It's short and has a fun story about how Pip and Adam fell in love. Hopefully you read enough to have met them seeing as how they showed up in book 3? - I think Book 3.

Pip is a shadow imp who is a character that has the personality of which you have never met. She is EXTRA. She may be centuries old, but she is a very young at heart type of character who would never hurt anyone but is down for all kinds of fun. She has a very eclectic sense of style and way of speaking and relating with others, but in the end, she is just being true to herself and hurts no one intentionally. I know that this is almost vague, but you have to read the book to understand. Think a grown-up version of Punky Brewster who likes to mix goth and 1980’s cartoons with cat tail butt plugs. Although this is about her and her husband Adam, he isn’t really in this book at all, he might show up in the next one, but this one is about the first half of their “courtship”.

This first book in the duet starts off with Pip playing with a 3-year-old Amelia, the daughter of the main characters of the first series "Afterlife" and the future heroine/love interest of the second series. However, we are in this bubble of time where it's an ordinary day at Afterlife and Pip is hanging out with Amelia when all of a sudden there is some otherworldly wall-shaking yelling going on and Pip realizes that Adam just discovered the joke she played on him.

Pip is married to a wonderful nerdy/geek-sheik man named Adam, and we don't know too much about what is going on other than he "almost lost control". Pip playing a joke on Adam as she normally does is just par for the course so she really wasn’t expecting anything other than her normal "punishments" that end up with her enjoying them too much. However, Adam needs to get away for a minute because he was really scared about how close he lost control over "himself".
So, while Adam takes off to parts unknown, Amelia begs Pip to tell her the story of how she and Adam met. This first book is that story. We see Pip doing what it was that she did that got her sent to that place where she met that being that brought her to Adam. - Lol!

You might be lost, but this is as spoiler free as you are going to get. If you aren't lost - Congratulations!

I liked this book because Pip was a bit less "Pip" than she became towards the end of Afterlife. I liked that it fleshed out the entire origin story that we got glimpses of and bits and pieces of in previous books. It went in detail of those things we wondered about. You know...how it all "worked"...lol! Seriously? Was I the only one trying to picture Pip with a pre-Adam Abaddon? Trying to figure out how a Multiple Storied tall monster managed to fall in love with a little Pip?
Well, we get the deets here - nothing too weird or cringy, but it was definitely putting to rest my questions. The book ends to the point where Pip is sent to find a vessel to hold the Beast. Book two takes it from there.

I enjoyed it, and am currently reading the second. I am especially enjoying that it is a proper story with no cliffhangers and I expect it to be done after the second book. Together they are about 350 pages so it's not a huge time investment. They are available from Kindle Unlimited so there's that.
I enjoyed it enough to recommend it to anyone who like paranormal romance, with humor, and aren’t really afraid of a bit of sexy times lol!

However, it isn’t full of sex, it's a proper romantic paranormal fiction book. Yeah. That’s it. Since there really isn't anything but a couple of pages worth of eroticism. The rest is actual "story". That is different than the other series. So, it was refreshing to not have to wade through pages of it. show less

Dear, sweet merciful Jesus, where even to begin, to start untangling the catastrophic mess that is this novel.

Let's start by saying that it's long.....too long for the wrong reasons. From page one, the author launches herself in filling the pages with descriptions of Kiera's surroundings, down to the details of her every step. I wouldn't mind, if it wasn't for the fact that those bits of information weren't important to the story. Yet, when she reaches something that could get you show more emotionally invested in the novel, like conversations with supporting characters, she simply glosses over them in a way that gave me a headache, and made me think, "What's the point of all this?"

If you manage to get yourself further then chapter one, you will be launched in a world filled with contradictions, and scene changes that will give you whiplash. I could have ignored even that, and soldiered on, if i didn't slam head first in to a wall of unoriginal content so extreme, it bordered on fan fiction.

The contradictions made little sense all together and made it extremely difficult to follow the story. At first Kiera loves her sister's house, next thing she say's it's creepy. She moved to give herself a 'new life' away from her past, and her scars, describing how people take extra care around her because she is emotionally fragile. But, the emotional fragility is nowhere in sight, as her mind is focused on gossip and trivial nonsense, like outfits and clubbing. When it focuses on something else it's on a guy. Kiera in one chapter loves hiking and the outdoors, in the next chapter is a clumsy person that isn't focused on physical exertion. She is this fragile flower, and an introvert that also leaves her phone number to the first person she meets, and goes clubbing. She is supposed to be shy and socially awkward, but then gets a job working nights as a waitress in the hottest club in town. See where i am going with this? How the hell am i supposed to know who is this character, if the author herself had no idea???

She is supposed to be a young woman, but from her conversation you get the feeling that she is twelve.This happened because the author aimed for naivety, but overshot, and got stupidity. Small example. - She meets some girls at college, escorted by the most popular guy around, that is giving her his undivided attention, and the girls are giving her an evil eye. She says that she doesn't understand why. The author wanted to portray that her character is above the usual social and gender grouping, and the conflicts that come with them, as an individual that is so blissfully selfless and unaware of her physical appearance. Then a few chapter's later, she describes Cassie as being hormonaly overcharged, as she ridicules her 'slutty' behavior. So, she understands, but is just playing stupid. All for our benefit? Gee, thanks...you shouldn't have....

The entire novel was in a dire need of an editor. So dire, it was on the floor, thrashing, bleeding and screeching like a stuck pig for one. The scene changes were so rapid and unconnected you had to do a double take sometimes, just to know where you are. One sentence, she is in the club, working, trying not to look at the Dravens, followed by:“AGAIN! With my imagination, I should write horror stories for a living!” The sentence after that, she is choosing an outfit from her closet, at home.


The whole: "I should write horror stories for a living".., is a backhanded compliment from the author to herself, for writing this novel...in case you missed it.

There are further things that were annoying, but if i write them all down, my review will have the same page count as the novel. So let's just stick to why i gave up...Kindly note that i would have given up sooner, if i didn't have to shovel trough a mountain of furniture descriptions to get to the key points of the story. This is a Twilight, Vampire Diaries hybrid, without even an attempt of concealment of the key elements of the two. All the hype about the Dravens- seen it all before as all the hype about the Cullens in twilight. All the awe, all the gossip. The black raven stalking the heroine? Well hello Damon Salvatore. The whole cheesy I'm-there-but-not-there-when-you-suddenly-wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-to-watch-you-sleep thing(Seriously? I mean, seriously?), meeting on a beautiful meadow in the mountain crap, hello Edward, where the hell have you been lately?

Overall, the story is a catastrophe, it's not thought trough, it's juvenile and completely over the top. The behavior and actions of the leading character is impossible to follow with your IQ still intact. I guess that there is an audience for this somewhere out there, but i am happy to report that i am not one of them.

The rating for this book is very high, and pushed me into reading it. The only thing i can say was thank god it was given to me and i didn't spend actual money on it. I would have been mourning it otherwise. show less

You know, I really love this series. This was the FINAL book, and it kind of left me feeling flat.

The characters in this book whom I have grown to love were replaced by clones who were overacting their parts. All of them lost their depth and were reduced to being their own stereotypes. Pip was way over the top and took wayyyy too long to get to any point, causing me to skim. Draven was wayyyy too possessive/overprotective and a bit too sappy. Sophia was relegated to a few lines, all show more basically either fangirling Keira or making sure she looked good - even though she was in the whole book. Keira basically became TSTL. What did she do in this book that was her stereotype? She hid stuff from Draven that she should have told him. She hid stuff from everyone, thinking it wasn't important or it wasn't real. She continually said that "If I were smart, I wouldn't do this", but goes on to do it. She went to great lengths to try and fix it without letting Draven know. Which of course ends up biting her on the ass. I will miss them.

The bits I had trouble with:

The "problem of the week" basically was Draven's demon trying to get Keira back to hell by either dragging her their or by taking over Draven to get to her. Why is this happening? We don't know but they think it has something to do with being hexed after saving the world. The real reason was all but screamed at us (maybe not the why, but definitely the who, how and when) but the three "boobateers" missed the mark and decided it was due to something else.

Keira handled it by playing off her worries and unexplained behaviors (all brought on by being accosted by a demon) by using her pregnancy as an excuse. She then became bitchy to him (all while feeling bad about it). Whatever. It was an arbitrary obstacle needed to be thrown into the book to keep it from just being "honeymoon in Scotland".

There was all this dramatic happenings where we think Draven's demon is going to get Keira, but nothing happens. He makes an appearance, we cut to black, the next morning comes and she's back in bed wondering what happened. We are anxious because we are sure that there is some kind of consequence to what we just read, but nothing. Nothing. In the whole book, we are set up for some kind of bad thing to happen, but it doesn't. It was all tied up nicely at the end, and we are left with the epilogue to see the HEA. Total red herrings I say!


Finally two things that plagued me through the series:
First, why couldn't Keira call Draven "Draven" instead of his first name "Dominic", and why couldn't she remember this in ANY reference to him in person or in passing around her family, leading to her ALWAYS saying "Dra-Dominic"? It was the one thing that made me want to go into the guts of my book and change it.

Second...I really, really, was shipping Lucius. I really liked him better and I can't wait to read his book. I hope it comes out soon. Lucius was a rock star/pirate/libertine who just seems more level headed and "fun" than Draven. Oh, I love Draven, but he turned into a two note character Note 1: sex Note 2: Protect Keira and lock her up safe. show less

This is mostly smut about the domineering devil alpha that has the MC at his mercy and she gets off on that big times.
There is a story in there somewhere that might actually be interesting but the sexual tension parts take over the entire book. They are full of superlatives and they get repetitive very quickly.
There are only so many ways to describe how turned on a character gets from being choked and restrained before it just gets old.
This review is very much about personal taste. If you show more are up for a hot and heavy atmosphere with lots of explicit demon king smut with a reasonably interesting plot on the side then go for it.
But be warned, even though the MC quite explicitly states that she isn't TSTL, she is very much TSTL exactly as your intuition might tell you. show less