Hello friends! š Welcome to another blog post, today I will review one of my most recent reads and favourites of this year, There is No Devil, the second book of Sophia Lark’s Sinners Duet duology. I am incredibly sad that this story, their story has come to an end because it turned out to be one of my all-time favourites in terms of dark romance. I must give you a warning though, the second book is a lot darker than the first one, the steam is high to the heavens and it gets slightly more gore in terms of scenes and descriptions. If you are a romance reader, you won’t feel it that much because character changes did balance it well in the end but I just want to let you know; that it gets darker.
There might be spoilers, which is understandable since this is the second book but if you haven’t read the first book or my review, click here and enjoy that one first!
This book was almost five stars to me, up till the epilogue to be exact. Sophie Lark didn’t drop the quality in the second book, I was in love, desperately, yearning for Cole and Mara and I couldn’t expect anything other than what we have in our second book. 4.5ās for me babies being this awesome. The only thing that bothered me was the epilogue like I’ve said, but it’s okay, it doesn’t make the book less good. but let’s start with the beginning, shall we?
The story starts exactly from where we left it. Mara is living with Cole, getting used to his ways and existence in general, and considering that she recently lost her best friend, her old life but gained so much more… I’d say that she is coping well with all the changes. Mara is blooming, both with her talent and her feist personality and I truly love how wicked she is. She feels like fresh air, almost gave me the same feeling as Mindf*ck series. She is unique in her own way and somehow, I cannot help but think that it is only her who could handle Cole Blackwell this well. I know that if it wasn’t for Mara, Cole wouldn’t be as loveable as he is.
Characters did develop immensely in the second book, Cole has become more and more obsessive over Mara but in the right way, while holding her close to himself, he made sure that our girl was taken care of. He is now more caring, and he controls his urges a lot better than in the first book. Mara, on the other hand, has changed into something else. Something more like… Cole, I would say.
Mara as a character was always shown us as the girl who had darkness within however was too weak to accept the darkness that she was born with. Now that she is in danger and she must protect herself from this predator who looks like a human, she eventually comes to peace with the darker side she has been carrying her whole life.
We learn more about her mother and her family situation, and eventually, it reaches the climax where she puts these people who hurt her out of their desperation. She is not the only one doing this but eventually, her background story comes to an end. We also learn more about Cole Blackwellās background, but I would say that it wasn’t as detailed as I would like it to be, because I feel like a complex character like Cole would have more layered responses to traumas that he accumulated over the years.
Nevertheless, I think it was great to see the background of them whether it was detailed or not. I enjoyed reading about these two characters who eventually realise that they are the right choice for each other because they are actually very much alike.
The last few chapters of this book were incredibly hardc*re, I must say that, and the specific scene in the maze wasā¦ let’s say that you will understand what I am talking about when you are reading the scene and it was so dark and twisted in the right way. Does that make any sense to you, I’m not sure. From the beginning of the book to the last pages of the book, I thought that this deserved five whole stars however the last three pages actually made me feel like the author tried to create a life for Mara and Cole but somehow managed to take away the despair and the questions and the feelings of Mara and sculpt her into a woman who is more like Cole Blackwell. I do understand that what they have gone through would inevitably create some changes in Mara, however, the fact that she was so OK with ending a life, or choosing this specific way to get revenge on a matter so stupidly funny didn’t really sit with me. But again, this happened in the last three pages of the book so it doesn’t affect the beauty of the entire book overall, yet that abrupt change in her behaviour was simply unnecessary if you ask me.
Overall, with its first class š¶ļøspiceš¶ļø, great plot and such amazing characters, this duology gave me everything I needed from a dark romance book and now I can say that I am a huge fan of Sophie Lark. The concept of art and how it is used as a weapon was so attractive, how it was used as a way to make a difference, to show the true colours, to create a trap… As a huge fan of art in every shape of form, specifically seeing sculptures and multi-media art was a bliss throughout this series as well. If you can handle some gore and dark romance, I’d say that give this series a chance. Read it, I am sure that your twisted mind will like it as much as mine did. š„²ā¤ļø
See you in my next post!
Luster of Books 