I picked up a copy of Cassie Alexander‘s Guarded by the Spider as an Amazon freebie.

For my kind, to be without a mate is to be doomed. I know it is too late–all that awaits me is retirement and death, and I’ve embraced it.

But when a suicide mission lands on my old boss’s desk, I’m the one he calls. Who better to tackle the mission in the deep, oppressive mines of my own ancestral homeland, if not an Arachnae already slated to die? And it’s not a rescue mission–he wants me to retrieve the corpse of a billionaire’s daughter kidnapped by a terrorist organization.

Except our intel was wrong.

She’s alive. Tortured and injured–but alive.

And from the moment I scent her, I am certain she’s my mate.

She cowers in fear when she sees me, yet I will stop at nothing to protect her.

And now that I have a reason to live…a whole lot of people are going to die.

I enjoyed this. Cinnamon rolls aren’t always my jam, but the MMC is such a cinnamon roll that you can’t help but adore him. He falls first and is all in from the first moment. It’s adorable. The FMC starts off fairly unlikably. But she’s also in a pretty bad situation. So, maybe it’s understandable. She had a lot of character growth throughout the story, and I liked her in the end.

I did think the spicy times were kind of meh. They seemed to go on forever with nothing of real note happening. There were also a few copy-edit errors, but the writing flows well and is easily readable.

I look forward to reading more of Alexander’s writing.

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