Six years ago, my world was ripped from under me, and I was taken to Cardinal Three. A place where pain has been my endless companion.

Witches, demons, shifters and humans all live under one rule.

King’s.

What he says goes.

So, trying to get the hell out of here hasn’t been easy.

No one leaves without his permission.

In fact, no one leaves at all…That is, alive.

But I have a plan.

One chance to get out of this nightmare once and for all.

One month is all I need.

One month to stay off King’s radar and get the last few items needed for the spell I’ve been working on.

Shouldn’t be that hard…right?

But turns out King has his own plan. One that involves trading me off to the five alphas of Manhattan.

With King’s ultimatum, I have no choice but to go through with it. But I’m still getting out of here, no matter what.

Or so I thought.

Turns out the five alphas are my mates…

And also, the boys I left behind six years ago.

316 Pages | 2hrs 40min Read

So, my feet are very cold and I’m in the office. It’s Tuesday so I have the dog with me and he is being a clingy doggy, needing to be cuddled and kissed on my lap. This greatly reduces the amount of work I can do. Add to this that there are company monthly reviews happening in the meeting room next to my office and it appears that my colleagues have forgotten to use their ‘inside voices’, it makes for a difficult working environment.

So, between the spreadsheets, phone calls, and typing, I read this book. I’m procrastinating really because I should be reading the Zoe Finch series by Rachael McLean but I got sucked in by this book (part of a trilogy) that I got on payday.

It is another reverse harem spicy book. Reading this didn’t give me heart palpitations like others read before it because the premise was the same. 1 woman. 5 men. Unpleasant circumstances. I feel like the most common reverse harem trope is to have the female be a survivor of trauma of some kind.

In this book the female is named Kiarra and the trauma she is inflicted with is not pleasant in any way and it is an ongoing trauma. It reminded me of The Bonds that Tie series by J Bree because Kiarra’s experiences are similar to that of Oli.

The book exists in a world that includes demons, shifters, vampires, witches, and warlocks. The antagonist of the book, King, controls most of the city and he is a vindictive and vicious character. A character without remorse and a character that thrives on delivering maximum pain to others. There is no redeeming quality to this character.

The 5 men in the group are: Kai, Jax, Luka, Axel, and Roin. Initially it did take me a while to be able to distinguish the different voices and know that they belonged to different individuals. At first, the five individuals blurred into one mass and I found it confusing to understand what I was reading.

I don’t know much about their individual personalities and so I haven’t got much of a read of their characters. The premise of them starting out with anger and hate towards Kiarra was over incredibly quickly so not an enemies to lovers trope in the traditional sense.

Everything that happens in this book is contained in one setting. It made the plot feel condensed and ‘pushed down’. I think there was much more that could have been developed in this setting to make for a deeper read.

Kiarra’s gift is another thing that made me draw similar lines to Oli.

While the plot wasn’t altogether unique or ‘awe inspiring’, it was a pleasant plot to read and I am looking forward to continuing the series.

Looking forward to book 2 I want to get a deeper sense of the characters as individuals as well as more detail into Kiarra and her gift. I want to see more expansion of the world and be allowed to see a setting outside of the hotel.

I give this book: ⭐⭐⭐

Spice: 🌶️