A Soul to Keep

This was way cuter than I was expecting it to be! If you're a fan of The Ancient Magus' Bride or monster romances, this is perfect for you!
The world building and Lore was incredibly well done. I went into this book not expecting too much and was blown away, I really couldn't put it down.

The book starts our FMC basically being sold off, by her village, to a Duskwalker. Which is something in between a demon, a monster, and humans? (No spoilers here, you can find out for yourself hehe). He just wants companionship and it follows the exciting and really cute story of her becoming comfortable around him and healing his lonely heart while also genuinely enjoying his company.

Also VERY spicy. And intriguing...

Reviews are DIVIDED so I was wary going into this one. A lot of people seem to hate how long A Soul to Keep is, but I didn't feel like any part dragged or didn't fit. Some reviews made it seem like Orpheus was nonstop obsessed with one of his previous “captives”, which was really not the case. They definitely came up as a big foil in the plot but it absolutely made sense to explain this Duskwalker's personality and humanity journey.

Now, the only thing that didn't work for me was Reia's dialogue. There's specific world building indicating technology basically froze in what feels like very early if not pre-Scientific Revolution, yet Reia is overly casual and extremely modern in her speech. Almost every time she talked I mentally rewrote her in my head to make it work. I'm hoping other characters in the series are written differently, and I liked this enough to keep going.