Posted on  12/08/2023 11:56:55

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Brutally honest review ahead so please... DO NOT READ it, if unpopular opinions are not up your alley.



Not gonna lie. I picked this one up for the cover and title. Based on those two, I had quite high expectations, especially after reading the blurb. A shy librarian and a hot gargoyle protector, dark secrets of the past... hell yeah! Sign me up please.

Was it everything I expected?
Hell no! Quite the opposite.

The shy librarian turned out to be a sort of prissy princess who kept whining about having to actually CHOOSE a future research project and having to 'manhandle so many books around the library' during her part-time shift. And of course she's afraid of all things dark and violent, like a proper shy maiden with delicate sensibilities. That fear may be the reason why, after tripping over a busker's guitar case in the dark and breaking it, she just takes off running praying to whatever deity would listen for help.

I literally shook my head at that because: What the hell woman! What happened with taking responsibility for your actions? Or at least feeling bad for someone whose livelihood you may have just damaged? That busker's only means of survival may have been that guitar and you've just busted his case. What if he had no means to replace it?! She just didn't give a rat's arse about that!

But back to the story because I digress, our Cat (that's the delicate librarian) gets rescued from the nasty busker by Tor the Gargoyle, whom she'd just unwittingly summoned with her cry for help. She faints in his arms of course and doesn't really realise what's happening until a day later, when she finds the naked Tor in the middle of her kitchen.

You'd think Cat would run away again screaming, right? Taking into account all the past drama.... But she instantly grabs a knife from the table and boldly threatens him.
'Who the fuck are you and what the fuck are you doing in my house?'

Now I'm seriously wondering if she's got some alternate personality popping up all of a sudden. But nope. It's the same shy librarian afraid of her own shadow, who suddenly grew a pair of balls. And a case of blue ovaries, from the way she instantly starts ogling the gargoyle's 'luscious butt cheeks.'
Apparently 'Dean Winchester would die of envy, if he saw these.'
And just a little while later she's definitely not thinking about 'the monster dick' or 'about sleeping with the gargoyle, riding him hard for half the night.'

Aww!! Who says romance is dead?!
Now please excuse me while I'm gagging, because WTF!! Especially since she lusts for 'the gargoyle' not Tor.

But on to the gargoyle, who's really very sweet. He takes an instant liking to the lady scholar he's bound to serve and protect and he's very hot and hard all over. Sex on a stick double time. He'd be totally awesome, if it weren't for the fact that his speech and thoughts seem more alike to that of a teenager with a solid inferiority complex. And he's all just bowing and scraping and doing everything on command!
Now don't get me wrong, I love my heroes with a gentle soft side, but not as floor mops one can make use of according to the mood. Our big hard gargoyle was way too meek for comfort.

So, Tor doesn't remember anything from before the darkness out of which he was summoned. Except that the cloth of his new pants seems so much nicer than the scratchy fustian he'd been forced to wear before, and other stuff like that.

And he does his best to protect Cat. From absolutely nothing. Because NOTHING really happens in this book. There's no big bad guy apart from that poor busker. No dark curse and no threat looming from either present or past, not even a damn 800+ pages hardcover about to fall on the woman's head.
Just Cat and Tor falling in lust together and finally getting in between the sheets by the end.

The dark secrets chaining them to the past and forging a future together?
Just about as dull as dishwater.

As for the end...
If you were expecting a big reveal and lots of feeling you'll probably feel as if someone stroked your libido to the max only to dump you in an ice cold lake.