I read this book because it was a gargoyle monster romance, and I wanted another sample of this author's writing. I don't think I would have picked it up if I had known it had daddy Dom / baby girl stuff, as that relationship dynamic is not one I like, and therefore many of the scenes / much of the sexual content was not to my tastes. Also side note: how does Titan barely know anything about Julianna but suddenly just "know what she needs"? And it did seem like Julianna liked the sex stuff but her mentality seemed resistant to having a Dom? But WTF do I know.

I did like that both characters had their own plot lines going on, her with a goal to not only survive financially but also to pay a lawyer to get her money back from her managers, and a subplot with some family dynamics as well; and him with a goal to try to find an ancient missing magical artifact and help out his fellow gargoyles. I liked the overall setup of the secret supernatural world and the creatures that were called Strange. I also found it entertaining that Titan had this mystical Pull toward the Keystone, though how that plays out over the course of the book I did not think was surprising. I did enjoy how Titan was supportive and reassuring through Julianna's encounters and attempts at resolution with family issues (aside from an assault). I saw a forum post that said that 'he wants to help carry the weight of her traumas' which I think is very accurate.

Overall this book was very mid for me, it does have a lot of sexual content and a lot of that was not to my liking, and I thought that the emotional development was pretty poor; and the actual overall plot especially the ending is quite blurry and not memorable for me. Reading some of the reviews, I saw someone point out that in their perspective Julianna liked the dick and liked the money but also thought that there was not enough emotional development to build up an actual romantic relationship. I also saw another review that pointed out that Jules was extremely die hard mad and reckless because of how Titan solved her financial problems with her manager and how she had wanted to do it herself, this was unrealistic and annoying. I think another review put it a bit more clearly by saying that Titan respected her bedroom boundaries but not outside of the bedroom, and her response to his actions was childish in the extreme.

I wasn't actually very interested in this book but picked it up because I wanted to read a hot new release. I think one of my favorite elements is the advice articles that are included that showed a bit of a darker side to Debbie, I found these to be entertaining and certainly early on laid a lot of foundation for tension and the emotional state of our main character. However I thought this book was a bit slow to start and it took me a while to get invested.

Around a quarter of the way in I was still traipsing along and I thought that the introduction of Harley's perspective was a needed element and I enjoyed her voice. Especially liked seeing Harley's perspective on Debbie and how interesting it was to see Debbie portrayed differently across the three perspectives of the book, this made the reader question the reliability of each. Around a third of the way through the book I thought the element presented regarding a potential affair just seemed a little bit too straightforward and easy, so it wasn't that big of a surprise to find out there were twists and I was wrong on that front.

The drama and pacing really escalated towards the end but overall this just didn't quite wow me, ultimately I had not predicted the main twist but I didn't feel that this was impactful as the previous Freedom McFadden books that I have read, and ultimately turned out to be relatively forgettable. After reading some other reviews, I agree with others that point out how there were a lot of coincidences throughout this book and a reader needed to have a "Just Go With It" attitude to accept a lot of those coincidences. I also agreed that to some extent the side characters needed to be villainous and emphasized so that the revenge against them would be palatable to the reader. I also saw a comment about how the pacing was inconsistent, there were some big moments followed up by filler that stalled the momentum, and I agree with that. Overall the plot was fine, I would have preferred a little bit more of characterization; the major couple twists at the end were not ones that I saw coming I just wish I would have been more interested throughout the whole book instead of just at the end.