This book took me by complete surprise, really.
The details are on point and the plot is something that just draws you in. It is dark and does have dark themes but yet it works completely with each character that she has designed for the plot. Highly recommend.

Overall:⭐️⭐️⭐️
Plot: 📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋
Romance: 💞💞
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡️⚡️⚡️
Sensuality: 🔥🔥
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑🍑
Number of Sex Scenes: 🍆🍆🍆🍆

Safety warnings attached at end.

Give this book a try if you want
-Something quite steamy with several explicit scenes
-Something different - a djinn hero after all
-An alphahole hero – he’s controlling, he’s jealous, and he’s sexually aggressive

Nadira is our heroine. She’s lost her grandmother but was able to salvage a strange necklace from her belongings. As she wears it, she begins to hear a voice from it. This voice promises to give her freedom from people attempting to use her in her life in exchange for his own freedom from the necklace.

Our djinn hero is definitely not human. Horns, claws, teeth...he can change his shape though. Parts of his appearance were off putting to me. I don’t mind the horns hahaha but more the claws I guess? Imagining claws on my skin makes me cringe. He’s definitely alpha, crossing that line to an alphahole. Very jealous and somewhat controlling. I enjoyed bits of that, though I would have preferred more time in his head to explore those emotions. I also would have preferred a bit more growth in their relationship by the end, the dynamics still felt similar to the beginning with her being at his beck and call.

Very steamy with quite a few open door sex scenes. Some are downright non consensual (not a negative for me) and felt very naughty. I guess I would have preferred them developed a tad more. A bit more length and more feeling/emotions tied in to them.

The heroine did come off as quite immature to me and a bit weak. I wasn’t able to change my mind about her by the end of the book. There were also repeating issues throughout the story that I would have liked to see morph into other things (You can’t keep me here! Let’s have sex. Repeat)

Yeah, so overall definitely something different. I’m happy to have read it.

Safety warnings (possible spoilers)



Human and djinn sex (he’s not a human), dubious/non consensual sexual acts, memory of death of a loved one, jealous/strong alpha characteristics in hero

This book was definitely something I haven't encountered before. It's a book that begins with the main male interest being pretty evil, but the HEA puts them together in the end. If you can get beyond that, and the non-consensual smutty scenes, this will definitely be a unique read for you.

Nadira lives in a very controlling house, forced to juggle the ridiculous demands of her family with her schooling. It's clear that this kind of life can't be making her happy, especially when she's forced to endure the insults of her family at every dinner. All of that changes when she discovers a necklace in her grandmother's belongings. This necklace ends up being the prison cell for a djinn, Idrak, who does his best to introduce some mischievous helpful wishes into her life.

Idrak starts his life in this book as a bad guy. Even after Nadira shows how kind hearted she is, he is still a pretty bad guy. These two somehow end up in a relationship? I had a little bit of a hard time getting behind this couple, but the smut is good. After a bit of a weird route, we do eventually get to a HEA. I was a little disappointed in some of the changes in Nadira, but she is still an interesting character to follow through this insanity.

Brilliant storytelling!

The book has a unique perspective and a different story. The background is India and the situations are completely relatable. A recurrent theme is family and protection of the female. Agreat read for lovers of fantasy.

I give a score of 10 9ver 10.

I am really confused with my thoughts on this book. I have whiplash from whatever just happened.
This book was actually pretty entertaining. Definitely for the shock value and the steamy bits. All the glorious steamy bits 😈 I mean, we were clearly warned what kind of book this was going in, so my review does not reflect the triggers at all.
I just really had a big issue with Nadira. She was such a weak character. I found her really shallow and frankly kind of annoying. Always comparing herself to others and always about surface values. Beautiful women being better and ugly men not being marriage material... she was always guilty for standing up for herself. Come on! Women are bad ass warriors! This made the perfect opportunity for the Djinn to get right on in there and for the plot line to progress so that’s a plus, but she didn’t change as the story went on. She traded her parents abuse for Idraks and I really wanted her to rise from her parents ashes and be kick ass. There were a few hints to this possibly happening but it didn’t go far enough and I was disappointed in her. She would stand up for herself, and I would be filled with all this hope for her only to come crashing down because of her need to be saved by someone else or a shitty ultimatum with really no choice at all. Gosh darn!
There was also a lot of repetitive scenes throughout the book. It was like deja vu. Family dinners and students talking about binging shows etc. I had already read it 3 pages before and I wanted something a little more.
For what this was, I was amused enough to finish this.
Did I mention the steamy bits?? 😉
I give this a solid 2.5⭐️s rounded up... because... steam, duh!
Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

~ARC received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review ~

What a beautiful love story!

Cinderella meets Beauty and the Beast in this dark and deliciously smutty paranormal romance.

I'm definetly adding this author in my personal top for go to read whenever the mood strikes.

5 stars!

Yes this does contain non consensual sex scenes frequently but it's very much a fantasy because they both end up enjoying it so obviously NOT reality. I was very excited to read a romance with a Djinn because sadly not many books about this type of supernatural are available. He is powerful and if you are fond of a hero who looks a lot more demonic than human then Idrak will fulfil your fantasies. He isn't perfect though as he can be controlling, overbearing and jealous but his journey as he fell in love meant I did have high hopes for him.
Nadira is a young, bright Asian woman stifled by tradition and her conventional family. At worst she's an embarrassment to them and at best little more than a slave. Idrak sees the real Nadira and wants to save her from a life of drudgery which would barely be Nadira existing.
Yes the title is correct Idrak does behave monstrously but this story does end happily and if you would like to read about another Djinn who finds love I recommend Oracle's Moon by Thea Harrison
This voluntary take is of a copy I requested from Netgalley and my thoughts and comments are honest and I believe fair

I received this book from Netgalley and am providing an honest review.

This was a DNF at 51% for me. Of the reviews that are already up at the time of this writing, I’m the only one that didn’t love it, so maybe it’s just a case of this not being my kind of book.

Despite there being a trigger warning for human and non-human sex, I wasn’t expecting anything quite so grotesque. I’ve read shifter and alien romances, but only those that have a mostly human appearance, which I can usually pick up from the book cover. Granted, we can’t see the djinn’s face on this cover, the torso seemed pretty promising and typical representations of djinn I’ve seen were human-esque. However, Idrak has two rows of sharp teeth, elfin ears, and horns. It was hard to get past that in the steamier scenes. Just doesn’t do it for me.

But even beyond that, I didn’t really like Nadira. She was a weak character that didn’t seem to be growing as the book progressed. Idrak treated her like crap but she felt bad anytime she stood up for herself and hurt his feelings. I also didn’t like Idrak. He was incredibly controlling and, despite being centuries old, not great at understanding and communicating his feelings.

I kept waiting for the romance, but it was just Idrak taking over the role of Nadira’s parents and making all her choices for her.

This book was like Beauty and the Beast meets Aladdin but make it dark and smutty! I love that the author included a trigger warning before the book to ensure safe reading!

We started strong with Indian representation and the world view only got more diverse. They referenced everything from Arabic lore to Greek mythology.

The romance gave off enemies to lovers vibes because they both denied their feelings for each other and tried to pretend they didn’t like each other. Although I wouldn’t go so far to say the were actual enemies because they did form a sort of friendship right from the start.

The book was an easy read and fast paced but still allowed time to really understand the complexities of each character. My only criticism would be that I think the ending felt rushed. It felt like we were gearing up for a big showdown but we breezed over the problem and our characters got their happy ever after handed to them. It just didn’t feel like they had to fight for it and I think it would’ve been more satisfying if the had.

It’s still a 5 star read for me I absolutely loved it! If you like dark fantasy and romance this is a must read!