I borrowed an audiobook copy of Harley Laroux‘s Her Soul for Revenge (narrated by Desireé Ketchum and Gregory Salinas) through Hoopla. I read and reviewed book one in the series (Her Soul to Take) last summer.
Juniper
After a cult tried to sacrifice me to their wicked God, I went on the run, doing whatever was necessary to survive. Until a demon offered me a deal: give him my soul and he’ll help me claim the vengeance I seek. Blood will be spilled, and the monsters I once ran from will soon be running from me. But damning my soul was just the beginning; it’s my heart the demon wants next.
Zane
I’ve been hunting souls for centuries, but she’s the ultimate prize. Vicious and feral, she has a broken soul as dark as my own. I thought claiming her would be a simple game, but Juniper is far from simple. I chose to follow her on a path drenched with the blood of her enemies, but it’s our blood that may be spilled next. As an ancient God wakes from Its slumber, neither of us may survive.
Her Soul for Revenge is book two in the Souls Trilogy but can be listened to as a standalone. It contains sexual scenes including kink/fetish content, horror elements, drug use, scenes of trauma, anxiety, and PTSD.
I tried, I really tried. I checked out this audiobook from the library, but I had to renew it 2 more times before I managed to finish it. (Goodreads says I started it Dec. 12 and finished it Feb. 7!) Honestly, I should have just DNFed it, but I’m nothing if not stubborn. I think, maybe, there just wasn’t enough new to the story to keep me interested. The events of the book are basically what a different couple is doing simultaneously to the couple in book one. Which means there’s not much in the line of new plot points to hang this romance on. I was bored stiff. And because I was bored, I never got particularly invested in the characters or their romance. So, the smut didn’t even interest me. Honestly, I started fast-forwarding through a lot of it (and it still took me weeks to reach the end).
As a side note, that couldn’t have helped my opinion of the book. I found that when listening to this smutty book with an a-hole alpha-y male lead and humiliation and power dynamic tropes, I really REALLY hated having a male narrator read it to me. I could not seem to get the distance needed to keep it in the remember-the-character-likes-it, he’s not just being a dangerous real-world misogynist, realm of fantasy. I couldn’t help imagining how much a real-world man (male narrator) enjoys getting to indulge in what, outside of fantasies, is pretty toxic and abusive behavior around women and sex. I’m not saying the narrator did or does (or that he did a bad job with the narration), but I couldn’t get the distance to separate him from the shit in the book. There are just far too many systemic attacks on women (by men) in our society, at the moment, and it’s bleeding into my reading. This was a lesson learned, and I will avoid male narrators for such books in the future.
Other Reviews:
book review | Her Soul for Revenge by Harley Laroux | Souls Trilogy 2
was the real shining star for me, but Rae gave him enough reflective light to do so.