Cate Corvin

I received a copy of Cate Corvin‘s An Inheritance of Monsters in my monthly Bookish Buys box.

Here there be monsters.

It was an offer too good to refuse: spend one month in the most haunted house in the world. When the reclusive owner of Duskwood Manor opens the door to five teams of paranormal investigators, there’s no way my team can say no.

But there are no ghosts here.

There are monsters.

They live under my bed, in my closet, and watch me from the shadows, whispering filthy visions in my ear at night.

Begging me to come with them to their world—the Void, where the monsters roam free… where they teach me what it really means to want.

Every night I disappear from the mortal world to play in theirs, swallowed by their insatiable, terrifying shadows.

Consumed by their claws and fangs.

Caressed by slick tentacles and endless, delicious hunger.

But the longer I stay in the Void, the harder it is to ignore its call.

There is a price to pay for stepping foot in this manor…

And the monsters have demanded me.

I had a lot of fun with this one. It’s silly fun mind you…I mean sexy silly, but still silly. Don’t take anything in these pages too seriously. But I enjoyed my time with Juno and her crew.

I did think that some of the sex scenes got a little out there and some of the dialogue during such scenes crept up on cheesy. Actually, a lot of the dialogue during sex scenes just didn’t fit the characters. One of the monsters, for example, feels very child-like in his understanding of many human things for most of the book—he’s NOT a child, just also not a human who’s lived in the human world and it shows in his character—but suddenly bust out the Porn Hub language during sex scenes. It felt jarringly out of place. And the plot’s pretty predictable.

But all in all, I enjoyed this. I’d read another in the series and/or another Cate Corvin book.

Other Reviews:

I borrowed an audio copy of Cate Corvin‘s Spin the Shadows through Hoopla. It was narrated by Amy Melissa Bentley.

I ate six seeds. Now I owe six months of debt to a dangerously sexy Fae hitman.

I’d had everything a dryad could want- a job, an apartment, and a scandalous human boyfriend-
Until I stole the wrong fruit from the wrong Fae.
Dragged into the Seelie underworld of deception and lies, I do anything he commands: steal, spy, even fight as we hunt down a notorious Fae fugitive.
Not exactly the fun I was looking for, despite the intense attraction between us.
But when the mission ends, I may not want to leave.

Dark and Wicked Fae is a Hades and Persephone-inspired Fae reverse harem romance, with high steam and a harem that builds over time. For mature readers only.

This was a big bucket of Meh for me. I wouldn’t call the writing or the narration bad. It’s just that nothing about the book—not the characters, not the world, not the supposed romance, hell, not even the one sex scene—lit me up. I felt pretty flat about the whole thing, the whole way through.

I said “supposed romance” because, despite being a slow-burn reverse harem, there is no romance here. The main character has sex with one man, kisses another, and is obviously open to a third who hasn’t made a move yet. But there is no romance going on, not even before the sex scene. So, meh.

But worst of all, for me, was that the entire method to her investigation is to dress like a whore and walk into arenas where men disrespect, disparage and abuse women. And while I understood that punishing such men was part of her motivation, it meant I had to sit through the disrespect, disparagement, and abuse of women. I don’t enjoy that. At. All. What’s more, I’ve read such plots so many times that I’ve come to consider them the lazy, low-hanging fruit of the plotting world. So, meh.

All in all, Cate Corvin may be a fine writer. I might try another of her series. But I have no desire to continue this one.