Review of Demon Bound and Hell Sent by Nina K. Westra

CW’s: sex, sexual assault within the first chapter, blood, gore, threat of SA, marital/domestic violence, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, body horror, cursing.

My rating for both: 3 stars

Okay. Jesus. Within the first chapter I was already getting the ick. i couldn’t tell what the setting was and this guy, this husband, is awful. Like the way he talks to her? And how he basically tells her the demon will violently rip her apart and SA her? Not off to a good start at all. Like I get it, dark fantasy romance, whatever. But I think there’s a way to do that without threatening SA by a demon and implying SA by her husband.

The author did a good job of making me hate Nirlan with a passion. But again, I think it’s possible to hate a male character wiithout SA coming into the picture. And we can portray a relationship that doesn’t work and has no love in it without the women suffering in that way. Women can suffer emotionally knowing they’re in a loveless marriage, there can be infidelity. I just don’t think Raiya had to be put through that, I don’t think the reader has to be put through that.

I will say, as I read further, seeing people who bound the demon get killed by said demon is total karmic justice. I would’ve liked to see Nirlan killed then too, though I suppose there needs to be a long-lasting villain.

Is it kind of interesting that the demon Azereth-or-whatever can feed off her pleasure? And that she makes a pact with him that requires consent? Yes. Is it still trash? Yes. Do I like this brand of trash like I like watching YouTube clips of Love Island?

Also yes.

The sex scenes were okay, I guess. Pretty bleh and cliched, not special but not overtly bad either.

I didn’t feel like the side characters really stood out either. They weren’t bad. A lot of this book is just an absence of either good or bad.

When Azereth and Raiya fought, I just didn’t feel a lot. I didn’t connect to the emotionality in the plot. And it’s not that I think there was none-I just didn’t connect to what was there. I wanted to, I really did. But I couldn’t manage it. I honestly wanted to just get it over with to move on to other books i had waiting on me to read.

The world building wasn’t the worst I’ve seen, but it just felt inorganic and like I was just being told about the different groups and kingdoms, nothing felt smooth or woven well into the story. I think worldbuilding shouldn’t feel so obvious, I don’t know.

I do think the author did some good things with some of the world, especially the magic system. And i think she did a good job, additionally, on developing Raiya’s abilities and the pace at which she did that. There are some really interesting threads here.

I do think there’s some shakiness in how she portrays the nomads here, who travel with a caravan. It feels a little like a parallel to the Romani people and it feels just a bit flat. I don’t know, I’m not qualified to touch on that.

The qualifiers and verbs in the dialogue were a bit flat too. The dialogue was shaky. But honestly, I’ve read much worse and it communicated parts of the story and did its job. And when the characters had good chemistry, the dialogue was actually pretty funny.

As the book developed, the world building did too, and once I was 62% of the way in, and the author had a more firm ground for her world, her characters, and the different groups (especially the “cults”) . It all worked really well for her. It gave some PrPrincess Bride type vibes in terms of the type of fantasy.

I do think it’s a little weird that the author chose to make demons born adults, which put Azereth as kind of ten years old?!? That was a little weird to me.

Overall. the plot of the book progressed pretty well, I liked the found family aspect a lot w/ Madira and Jai, and I liked the ending. The progression of their relationship was really sweet.

I will say, Hell Sent is really just a few chapters of new information/background, then a different POV of the events of the book (Azereth rather than Raiya). But I do think it added to the first book.