Rating: 3.75/5 Heat Level: 5/5 Pub Date: August 11th

My review:

An erotic romance that feels less dark than it is pervasively melancholic— for all that you'll see Ryan Bell and the fucked shit he pulls in the name of obsession hyped up, I would say the true darkness lies with Birdie, a woman who is constantly on the brink and forced to make tough choices over and over, until even a gilded cage is preferable to her real life.

I love romances where there's a deal with the devil, and I did come to appreciate Ryan as the kind of fucked-up-lite hero who is good for Birdie. She is so run-down and weary, she just needs a break... and Ryan provides that, we assume, as atonement for him RUINING HER LIFE when he was an undergrad and she was his professor. It's also hilarious that he tracks her down because she sculpted an exact likeness of him as a sexy devil that's in city hall lolol. Ryan engages in mild sociopathy with a smile, and bonus! He wants Birdie to continue making art, even when she's bound to him in a free-use agreement for a year. Whatever could go wrong in this relationship?

Birdie is a heroine you need to have a lot of patience for. I think the most apt comparison is likening her to a medieval historical romance heroine— a woman whose devotion to God is admirable in the beauty and art it inspires, but terrible because that level of zealousness harms her over and over. Combine her naturally-introverted personality with the shitty life she's been dealt, and she does not read as the older woman in this relationship at all, particularly when baby Bell here is so naturally confident and has attained the hallmarks of success for men older than him.

My problem with this story is, it hinges on you buying into Ryan's years-long obsession with Birdie and I... wasn't sure if I did. The first part of the story is all from Birdie’s point of view. She is the hero’s professor, but we barely see her interact with him beyond standard student stuff. We never see the start of the hero’s stalkery obsession, only one scene that begins with his surprise confession, and ends with her career being destroyed. By the time we get to a belated, somewhat-weak explanation of why, I began to wonder if it was less about Birdie herself, and more about Ryan having the kind of personality that would lend itself to this kind of extreme obsession. Which is a depressing thing to wonder in the context of a romance novel, because the point is these two people are meant to be perfect for each other. She should not feel replaceable in this love story.

The sex:

Sierra Simone knows how to write a hot sex scene, and Ryan LOVES to push Birdie's boundaries consensually... and not so much in the very beginning. The term "transgression" is used a lot. You've probably heard of the scene on the cross by now (if you haven't, whoops!), but my favorite are all the quick and dirty sex scenes in the beginning of their free-use relationship— the classic tension of him wanting more, and her being somewhat torn up about it even as she wants him. Sierra Simone writes Ryan as "nice guy doing awful things" SO effectively, and it's truly where this book shined.

Thank you to Sierra Simone and her team for the advanced copy.