This fantasy/mystery/paranormal romance follows down on her luck journalist Evie as she tries to get enough temp jobs to make ends meet while posting articles to the internet in hopes of getting an actual journalism job one day. Her most recent temp position is at Heartbreak Incorporated - a private investigator office where the mysterious and magnetic Misha specializes in breaking up relationships. Need your spouse to have an affair so you can get out of your prenup? Misha is your guy. He always follows the letter of the law, but as Evie finds out, there's more going on beneath the surface. When their most recent client is found to be delving into the occult, Evie and Misha travel from NYC to San Francisco to try and stop a disaster. Evie then needs to decide what path she wants to take - follow her journalism path and leave all this PI stuff behind or fully accept that not everything is at it seems and follow Misha as he searches for monsters in the shadows.
I really liked the balance of genres in this book. It is primarily a fantasy mystery with the romance secondary. It was pretty light on the fantasy/paranormal elements which was a plus for me since I'm not a very big fantasy reader. I really liked how the book starts by being grounded in a reality where Misha is just a little weird and there's something off about him but then more and more details get revealed about the supernatural elements that exist in our world. I really liked the non-traditional choice of supernatural creature in the book that gave the book something a little extra special. I also found the way the explanation and history of the creature and conflict in the book was really well done. It was woven into the romance sub-plot very well and with enough other plot happening in between information sessions that it never really felt 'info-dumpy'. The magic (or powers, or whatever) system in this book is pretty soft with not too much known about exactly what the limit to the creature's power is but this didn't bother me at all. I was glad this story focused on just one creature type and we didn't get the sort of 'underground society of creatures' that I think we get in a lot of urban fantasies. For a relatively short book (300 pages), I think that adding any more creatures would have made the narrative really rushed and overly complicated. For me, this book felt split 60/40 between fantasy and paranormal romance. Again, neither of those genres I really gravitate toward so my meter may be off on those percentages.
The romantic elements in this were a little underdeveloped for me. I think there was a good amount of development of Evie and Misha's relationship as coworkers and as friends but I wanted just a little bit more. I didn't quite understand why Misha was so trusting of Evie just because she asked if he was okay a few times. We only get Evie's POV in the story so maybe those little caring questions really meant that much to Misha but it seems like for someone so used to being a loner that he would have needed a bit more time to warm up so much toward her. I would have liked them to work another case together before the big supernatural case in order to build the rapport and their trust. Evie admits to having a crush on Misha but doesn't want to go any further at first because he's her boss and she thinks it is just because he's so handsome. Again, apart from a few friendly remarks, I didn't really understand the jump from her crush to being full on in love with him. Just a couple extra chapters with Misha and Evie working together and getting closer would have really made this for me. I also didn't love how open ended the ending was in regards to their relationship but I'm hoping maybe this was a choice because they wanted to have sequel potential. It wasn't a cliff hanger ending or anything, it just was a little open to interpretation so even if there isn't a sequel, there is enough in the ending for me to feel comfortable imagining them having a happy ending.
I really liked the characters in the story - I thought they all were really well developed and worked well together. Each character we're introduced to immediately had a strong personality that I could grab onto and know exactly who this person is. I think De Campi's strength is her character work and as a character-focused reader, I greatly appreciate the craft. I also loved how casually the queer representation was worked into the story through the various characters. Misha is bi, Evie's best friend is a lesbian, and there's some interesting gender-queer/non-conforming/non-binary aspect in the story as well (can't elaborate because of spoilers). I can't speak to the accuracy of that representation personally but I noticed it and I really appreciated aspects like that being worked into the story so easily. I think every character were used to their fullest extent and none of them felt cookie cutter or like they were just taking up space in the narrative. Even the group of priests, who are sort of the antagonists who join the story in the 3rd act, are really well developed and actually brought a good amount of humor to the book with their banter back and forth within their group as well as Evie.
I think the pacing in this story was spot on which is really impressive considering how many moving parts we had in such a low page count. I would have expected a story like this to be more around 400 pages but instead it sits at 300 so every line is really used to the max. I think the real testament to the pacing is the fact that the first like 30% is mostly Evie doing office work and thinking about how weird Misha is acting. But I was pretty much instantly drawn into the story and kept flipping pages. I read this in an afternoon and wasn't bored at any point. There's a pretty constant rotation between plot lines that kept me hooked as we would get little clues or reveals in one plot line only to then switch to another and get some reveals in that one and then switch to another etc. For example, we would get a little bit more information on the mysterious Misha then cut to Evie trying to make her big break in journalism, then to the agency's newest case, then Evie's crush on Misha - rinse and repeat. All of these plot lines are also so intertwined that it never feels like we're leaving the 'main' plot for some random side plot. Everything feels like it is building to a greater whole and that's what really keeps the pacing up.
Overall, this was a really fun fantasy/paranormal romance. Great character work, excellent pacing, fun premise. Romance plot was a little lacking in development for my personal tastes but still very good.
Thanks to NetGalley and Solaris for the ARC in exchange for review
Expected publication date is June 22, 2021
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