i am NOT the same person i was before i read this book. something inside me shifted and i don't think it's going back. five stars. no notes. only feral devotion.
okay so let me set the scene for you: a people-pleasing, conflict-avoidant HR coordinator from Nashville — a girl who can't even tell her boyfriend his music is mid — falls through a PUDDLE in rural Tennessee and lands in another dimension. the dimension is ruled by seven queen sisters who are — and i need you to stay with me here — LITERALLY Earth's cryptids. the Wampus Cat? a queen. Bigfoot? a queen with big feet and an insecurity complex. Mothman? queen with wings. the Jersey Devil? ALSO a queen. every cryptid sighting in Appalachian folklore is just these interdimensional demi-goddesses on patrol, and the moment that clicked for me i had to put the book down and stare at my ceiling for a full minute.
and the Wampus Cat queen? she assigns our girl a BODYGUARD for the weeks-long journey across the realm to find a way home. a demon bodyguard. 6'6". horns. claws. retractable. scars all over his body from years of captivity. a temper that could level a city. reads erotica novels in private and hides them under the couch cushions like a teenager. and he is a VIRGIN.
let me say that again so the people in the back hear me: 6'6" vengeance demon prince. virgin. obsessed with her from the MOMENT he smells her across the castle. he hears three sounds when he first sees her — a gasp, a sigh, and a growl — and it takes him several seconds to realize all three came from his own throat. this man is FINISHED from page one and she doesn't even know.
the slow burn in this book. oh my GOD, the slow burn. weeks of travel. one tent. he's catching her every time she stumbles just to touch her arm. he buys her SOAP at a market because he wants to be the one who chooses what scent touches her skin. his internal monologue — i quote — is: "most females covet jewels, but mine yearns for soap." and then IMMEDIATELY: "stop this. she is not yours." TOO LATE BUDDY. you bought ten bars. you're gone.
and can we talk about Kevin P. Norton for a second? that's the ex. and sam (the demon) asks her ON DAY ONE if her boyfriend satisfies her sexually. when she doesn't answer? he mentally files that man's name away so he can PERSONALLY torture his soul in the afterlife when the time comes. he doesn't even know Kevin. he just knows he's not doing his JOB. the casual menace of this man is a religion and i am a devoted follower.
but HERE is the part that broke me. because this isn't just a horny demon book (though it IS a horny demon book, EXTREMELY so, we'll get there). this is a book about a woman who has spent her entire LIFE being needed. her alcoholic mother needed her. her absent father needed her. her useless boyfriend needed her. her boss needed her. everyone takes and takes and takes and she just… lets them. because she was raised to believe her job was to serve, not to want.
and there's a scene — THE scene — where a vampire pins her down and screams "I NEED YOU!" and that phrase. those three words. they trigger every single person who's ever used them to drain her. and something inside her BREAKS OPEN. she kicks a vampire in the gut, fights her in the dirt, steals her stake, and drives it into her chest. with her bare hands. because she was finally, FINALLY done being drained.
if you were parentified as a child. if you were the family therapist at age eleven. if you've ever said "i'm fine!" when you were absolutely not fine because nobody ever asked — this scene is going to GUT you. it gutted me.
NOW. the spice. because we need to discuss it.
this man — this enormous, terrifying, virgin demon — says "show me how you like to be touched here. guide my hand." he asks "may i kiss you here?" he says "can i bring you to come like this?" he asks for PERMISSION and INSTRUCTION at every step because he has never been with anyone and he wants to learn HER. specifically her. not some generic technique — HER body. HER pleasure. and when she shows him? he is the most attentive, eager, devastating student who has ever lived.
and when he finishes too fast the first time (because he's a VIRGIN who's never been TOUCHED and the stimulation overwhelms him)? she doesn't shame him. she laughs WITH him. she says "you're sorry for giving me the most mind-boggling orgasm of my life? because i'm not." and then he stands up too fast and accidentally destroys the tent with his horns. YES. HIS HORNS rip through the ceiling. the entire structure deflates around them. she's CACKLING. he wants to die. it is the funniest, most tender, most human moment i've ever read in a spicy scene and i was crying with laughter.
can we talk CRAFT for a second because i'm a writer and i was taking notes the entire time — avalon griffin is doing something rare here. she's a storyteller AND a writer, and those are not the same thing. storyteller means architecture: the plants and payoffs, the arcs that interlock, the reveals that recontextualize everything before them. WRITER means sentence-level craft: economy, rhythm, immersion. making you love third person when you usually bounce off it. she's doing both. simultaneously. at density. for 444 pages. with zero filler. i didn't skip a single LINE.
the dramatic irony in this book is devastating — we know from chapter 7 that the FMC is being used as bait. she doesn't. for THIRTY CHAPTERS we watch her fall in love with this man while knowing the whole thing is built on a lie. that's not cheap manipulation — that's structural genius. every sweet moment is laced with dread. every soap purchase, every caught-you-when-you-stumbled moment, every "you may call me sam" — we know what she doesn't. and when the truth comes out? it EARNS the devastation because we felt it building for 300 pages.
the twist at the end — i won't spoil it fully — but the lost queen reveal made my JAW hit the floor. i genuinely gasped. out loud. alone. at midnight. it recontextualizes the ENTIRE book and it sets up the sequel perfectly.
also: i'm about 80% sure avalon griffin has walked through an actual interdimensional portal in rural Tennessee and is just writing about it as "fiction." the town in this book is REAL. the trail is REAL. the cave is REAL. the restaurant she named was a real restaurant until it burned down in 2020. she set her portal fantasy in a place that locals ALREADY say is haunted. ma'am. EXPLAIN YOURSELF.
avalon — if you're reading this — you wrote something that made me feel brave. your inscription in my signed copy says "be bold and be brave" and that's literally what your FMC learns to do over 444 pages. you wrote a woman who goes from invisible to unstoppable, and you did it without ever making her feel like she wasn't worthy of the story. she was always the protagonist. she just didn't know it yet. thank you for this book. thank you for this demon. i will be feral about him for the foreseeable future and i am not sorry.
read it. annotate it. keep it forever. 🖤
content warnings: violence, decapitation, vampires drinking blood, kidnapping/abduction (backstory), alcoholism (FMC's mother), emotional manipulation, explicit sexual content, fire, references to forced fighting/captivity.
🖤 be bold and be brave. 🖤