Long review incoming! Spoilers: minimal to none.

I felt like these two books were okay, but by no means did they kept me enthralled like the Puppeteer books did. The use of similes was borderline obnoxious, no, I amend that, it was obnoxious. It felt like every other sentence had a comparison to something like the night sky, the stars, literally anything that was similar in any form or fashion.. and it left the writing wanting on some level because it extended the books too much.

I knew it was a slow-burn, but it was so slow that it was boring to me at times. Other times, it picked up and I was intrigued, so that kept me going. The characters were somewhat interesting in certain ways, and I liked that we had the chance to see their unique perspective on things. Ironically enough, Vlad was the least interesting to me, because he fit the Dracula typecast to a T and just continuously whined at Maxine about how he’s so bad and horrible and she doesn’t truly understand it. It’s funny, because he truly cares for her and admires her humanity and empathy, but tries to make her see past it after he uses it makes her fall in love with him. He tried to manipulate her into loving him, then tried to manipulate her into thinking him an unforgivable and irredeemable monster; it didn’t make sense to me. He probably could have easily coaxed her to end him, had he treated her with cruelty and shown her the extent of his evil ways in the beginning, but apparently he liked her too much from the start to do that (even though he’s treated other women badly that he liked in the past)? His motivations and actions confused me from the start since they never seem to entirely match up.

Maxine and her gifts were unique and thought-provoking, but the shiny new feeling of that was lost on me when she started pitying and excusing men for everything they did. I understood her blaming herself for the stepfather, that kind of abuse worms it’s way into your brain and does that to a woman at times, but Alphonso struck her without remorse or reason after she let him stay in her home and called him a friend, and she just accepts it when he starts to treat her like an object to be used. It boggled my mind that she never once thought ill of the man; listen, I understand the empathy gift, but she’s supposed to be human, and human rationality loses its power under the weight of heavy emotions all the time, yet not with Maxine! It just wasn’t very realistic to me. I tried to acknowledge the historical context, that it was another time period where the patriarchy kept these women placid and content to knit and do other nonsensical tasks all day so they had no real purpose in many respects; but that’s negated by Maxine’s lifestyle. She’s supposedly a strong independent woman that makes her own money, had a good reputation, and didn’t abide by the standards of that time due to her unique upbringing with the Roma, so her behavior made even less sense to me wheni considered all of this. She even said herself that there’s a difference between understanding and agreeing with someone’s actions. She stood up for Vlad with this statement when he basically murdered people, but she failed to mention that giving someone a free pass for their horrible actions because of past suffering they’ve endured is another thing entirely. And oh boy, does she ever do just that, again and again, with no changes until she sees Alphonso’s fate toward the ending of the book. The very end of the book has the only bit of growth that is thrust upon Maxine and Vlad without their consent.

Oddly enough, the secondary characters seem to be the most interesting and have the most growth, namely Bella. Her evolution was stunning to behold because it spits in the face of the “be submissive, understanding, and accepting of anything anyone deals you, because you’re a female” mentality that plagued this time period. She could have been the main character with such an interesting story, and her character’s shift was everything that I was hoping would happen for Maxine. Bella could have easily had her own spinoff book. She [pretty quickly] gives in to her desire to be the version of herself she never realized she wanted to be, and I loved it, and Mordecai. Their roles and story were part of why I got to the end of this series. They were secondary characters, but their story seemed more intriguing than Maxine and Vlad at many points because Bella and Mordecai made steady progress while the constant back and forth between Maxine and Vlad became exhausting after a while and it felt like we were getting nowhere fast until it all happens at once at the end.

At any rate, the books were entertaining enough, and the first one was free, so I really shouldn’t complain as much as I did. I was just expecting that something special I felt with the Puppeteer, and I didn’t get it here. I would recommend that you don’t set yourself up to failure with this one by expecting the same writer you saw in those books. It’s like someone totally different wrote these. I was a little irritated that it was so unbelievably long, yet the book ends so abruptly at the part we’re waiting for.. we never get to find out if Vlad changes for Maxine and stops killing innocents or if Maxine grows a backbone and makes him stop. I wish that the rest of the book that felt like it was going around in circles would have been edited down and that the ending had been extended further so we could see the results of the changes Maxine and Vlad went through. Bottom line: it was good enough for me to obtain some enjoyment from it, but I don’t think I’d recommend it to a friend.