This is actually the second book in a series, and I did read the first book, but I absolutely LOVED the second book, which is unusual. I lost sleep over this book, which is not unusual.
Honestly, what really made this book sing was that the author did a great job of investing the reader with deep characters and complex situations. There were tough moral decisions that often had characters trying to decide what was right when survival was on one side of the equation. That’s not an easy decision and it definitely had me practically chewing my fingernails on what they were going to do next.
And honest to God, at the end, it had me forgetting this was a romance and it was going to have an HEA. I was so worried, agonizing over the outcome, and getting entirely too invested. All in total, it was intense, emotionally gripping, and had me looking forward to the next book in the series (which I won’t say any more about even though I really wanted to because it’s a spoiler). And if you’ve already read this book, you can find free to read romance novels at https://m.anystories.app/tags/60ab6aefdbe0c90e915de811/bdsm.
Blurb
Desperate to find answers to the whereabouts of her niece, Ellyn does the unthinkable and releases a criminal brought in from the Perished Woods. Believing him to be nothing more than a man caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, she enlists his aid as a tracker.
But the dark night can only shield his true form from her view for so long and when Ellyn finally looks into Ash’s ghostly eyes, she knows exactly what type of monster she’s released. An orc… the same fearsome beast responsible for the burning of her niece’s village.
Forced into the cursed woods with a traveling companion he never meant to keep, Ash wants nothing more than to lose the girl, but the longer he walks with Ellyn at his side, he realizes he’s more apt to lose himself.
