Maya’s 18 birthday brings with it the family gift and it’s not some old portrait of grandma or a cupboard full of creepy dolls, nope, it’s something so much better than that (and no, I’m not telling you what is either)!

Maya’s story picks up several years later after her dreams and her family have been shattered. She’s now providing for her younger sister by working as an exotic dancer at a time when someone seems to be stalking and murdering vulnerable women in the most brutal of ways.

This is my kind of book. It’s savage and sexy and the main character is both strong and likable and that’s something too many books get dreadfully wrong. But not this time. She has moments of weakness but she absolutely does not have time to fall into a pit of emotional despair and “woe is me-isms”. This nasty villain is soon going to realize she’s messing with the wrong family!

The characterization is beautifully done and the attraction bits are extra spicy with a few nice breaks of unexpected humor. Also, the gross bits are so perfectly gross! So icky. The author doesn’t chicken out on the gruesome aspects of, well, you’ll see!

There’s a lot going on here and I wouldn’t have minded if the book were a little bit longer but I’ll take what I can get. It gave me some major <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/269806-hot-blood"> “Hot Blood” series </a> vibes and I’ll never complain about that! There are some typos and some easily fixable things here as others have noted but those things don’t bother me much. I’m giving it a solid ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️’s. I’d love to revisit this world again.

I saved my favorite quote that made me laugh like a loon but it might be a little spoiler, and you won’t understand unless you’ve read it so I’ll put in the spoiler tags.

“The weaver's cup would cummuth over” 😹