I picked up Michaela Haze‘s Blood Sugar as an Amazon freebie.

They call my family a cult.

I’m not allowed to tell anyone what happens behind closed doors.

Our Sect worships the Old Gods. Our little community is surrounded by the Never Forest. A place neither Here nor There.
“The people that can dance with the dead will make their homes with the Demons.”

My family can do wondrous feats. Animate corpses, and see the future through the eyes of the dead.
I can do none of those things.

But the Gods have set their eye on my virtue.
There is one for each of the Seven Sins.
And I am theirs.

I went into this with pretty low expectations. It was an Amazon freebie, and let’s be honest, those are pretty hit or miss. But Blood Sugar was a hit. I really enjoyed it. Now, admittedly, it wasn’t at all what I expected. Don’t—like me—go into this expecting steam and a bunch of growly alpha a-holes. That isn’t what you’ll find.

In fact, there is very little sex in the book, and what there is is past the 75% mark and pretty mild. And while the Sin’s might be a little stand-offish at times, they aren’t a-holes. These men are broken and sweet, even if they don’t always show it. Ophelia is the growly one, and I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed that switch. She’s also capable, loyal, and broken herself.

Now, fair warning, though there is no on-page rape, a TW for it is probably appropriate. It plays a fairly large part in the plot. I probably wouldn’t have read the book if I had known that, since I try to avoid rape in the books I read for fun. But in this case, I can honestly say it’s incorporated into the plot, not a cheap device (which is one of my most common complaints when it is used in a book).

The book isn’t perfect. It could use another editing pass, and there are several times that villains are defeated; all of them are anti-climactic. As was the ending, in that it just kind of ended with a bit of a bang but no wrap-up. Despite that, Haze just went on my author-to-watch list.

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