Akwaeke Emezi weaves a dark, romantic story following Galilee Kincaid as she moves through a world she thought she understood. The Kincaid women are powerful and strong, living on the outskirts of a nearby town with no men among them they know who they are. Galilee has always felt as though she is set a part from this group of hunters, and to find herself she moves into the local city. On a night out with friends Galilee meets Lucifer Helel, a security personal in charge of guarding a rare artifact. Upon first touch a fire ignites in both of them, one they can't deny and one that is not particularly human. As they dive headfirst into each other Gali learns that Lucifer is just that, and he wants her more than anything else...

Wow was this plot hotter than Hell! Emezi has created such powerful women to rule her stories and Galilee in "Son of the Morning" is no exception. The sizzling romance holds it's own with this unique world and plot. I loved the twist on the hierarchy of Hell and found all of the characters so interesting. The Kincaid women specifically were so cool, I want a prequel about them desperately!

Wonderfully atmospheric, with compelling, efficient prose. Emezi writes well-realized, dimensional characters and dynamics.

The romance was fantastic, nothing juvenile or standard about it, an amazing entry into the romantasy genre, Emezi makes old tropes fresh and interesting.

Son of the Morning felt like a pretty standard, paranormal romance. Emezi is a solid writer and their talent shows through in this work.

I absolutely enjoyed this book! I knew that this one was about The King of Hell but that was all I knew. I went in blind and I was completely surprised! Son of the Morning gives the reader a front seat into how Lucifer falls in love with Galilee Kincaid. Now based on everyone's knowledge or rumors about the Devil himself, who would think that he would fall in love?
This book is a love story wrapped in lust, revenge, friendship, family, and love triangles.
When Luci and Kincaid meet, it's by happenstance, but it's "burn" at first sight!
This book was amazing and I couldn't put it down! It's a must read for 2025!

Objectively, this was a fine book. The writing style is engaging, the characters are charismatic, and there’s an interesting plot coating it all. Subjectively, though, I was sorely disappointed. I nagged a lot of people to get this book (I even emailed the publisher before I was approved here in NetGalley), and maybe my expectation had grown too high, but I really struggled to finish this.

For starters, while the idea behind the characters was good, I thought the execution wasn’t there. In the first five chapters or so, I didn’t know anything about Galilee other than she was special and overwhelmed by her overbearing family, while Lucifer acted like a horny teenager for most of the book instead of the eons-old, unhuman being he was supposed to be. The romance, which I thought would be a high point for me, was rushed, lacked chemistry, and read as insta-lust (and insta-love) from both parties instead of a developed relationship between the two. I actually liked Leviathan’s character a lot (he was the only one with a working head on his shoulders) and his relationship with both Lucifer and Galilee was the aspect I enjoyed the most outside Galilee’s family, the Kincaids, which I would’ve loved to see, learn, and read more of. That said, I appreciated a lot how queer this book was and how effortlessly it was written in the story.

The writing style was good. Akwaeke Emezi is truly an amazing author and storyteller, and I really enjoyed how they weaved their words together and their meaning. I will definitely read more of their work soon, but I don’t think I’ll continue this series. I just didn’t connect the way I wanted to (and I really, really wanted to *see emailing the publisher about it*), but I can see a lot of people enjoying this book too!

I’m DNFing @ 22%. I had only read one other book by this author and it was one of their non-romance books, it was devastating but really good. They are a strong writer. I could see that peaking through in the beginning of this. I was really taken by their voice and the build up in the first chapter. But then…things became too over the top and I’m 20% of the way in and I don’t feel the chemistry being built up between Galilee and Lucifer.

I’m afraid this book is going to suffer from what most traditionally published romantasies suffer: either the romance or the plot is lacking because one is being focused on more than the other.

It just feels really silly and somewhat juvenile.

Son of the Morning was an over the top, but enjoyable read. There were several moments that almost threw me out of my suspension of disbelief, but the narrative rallied and swung from too silly to compelling fairly quickly. I appreciate how extremely queer the book is, for all that it's being marketed as an M/F romance.