Day: May 27, 2020

Review: Poisonwood (Poisonwood & Lyric #1) by Sam Burns and W.M. Fawkes

This was a quick, easy read with low angst and a happy ending.

4 out of 5 stars

E-book. Kindle Unlimited. 113 pages. Published March 12th 2020

Blurb:

A starving incubus.

A bear alone.

Jasper Jones is Lyric’s most pitiful incubus. He can’t feed and doesn’t want to if it means hurting people. When a witch gives him a chance at breaking the cycle of hunger, he rushes half cocked into the woods in search of a cure.

Caleb moved into Poisonwood Forest to escape the crowded city of Lyric, but it’s lonely by himself. He doesn’t expect to find his mate when he trips over an unconscious young man in the middle of the woods, but there he is, perfect—except for a peculiar fondness for processed cookies.

Their only problem is that Jasper’s sick, and when he doesn’t get better, his one shot at survival is in the hands of a bear shifter who’ll do anything to save him. 

Likes:

  • Hooked me right from the start.
  • Interesting premise.
  • Jasper’s feelings were understandable.
  • Good smut.
  • Quick, easy read.
  • Low angst.
  • A feel good ending.

Dislikes:

  • Caleb felt a little underdeveloped.
  • Not much world building.
  • Not much info given on incubi.
  • Felt like the men had to be spoon fed the romance.

This was a fun novella. The blurb caught my attention and Jasper’s feelings towards feeding off people hooked me right away. It felt very modern and self-aware for Jasper to be worried about his food. More people are paying attention to where their food comes from and how it’s produced. So if humans can worry about their food, why can’t an incubus?

Does Jasper take it to the extreme? Yes. Do I think he could have done research on how to be an ethical incubus? Maybe. I don’t really know. There’s not a ton of world building. Which is one of the downsides of a novella. There’s isn’t room to expand on things that could have cleared up some of my questions. And I do have questions.

Jasper feels like he has no choice but to be the kind of incubus his father and siblings are. It made me wonder why he didn’t simply do some research to see if an incubus can have a normal relationship. It’s clearly stated that the supernatural community exists.

I have questions about Caleb too.  He felt a little underdeveloped as a character. I don’t feel like I know much about him, even simple things like whether or not he has a job or how he has a cabin in a public forest. Still, I liked him. He was a good match for Jasper, and they made a cute couple. The smut was hot and I enjoyed watching their relationship deepen.

My biggest complaint is that the men needed to be spoon fed the romance. If it wasn’t for multiple sisterly interventions, the relationship wouldn’t have survived. Poppy almost felt like a puppet mater controlling things from the shadows. And while it was ultimately Jasper and Caleb who decided to become a couple, I would have liked them to have a bit more autonomy.

Overall, this was a quick, easy read with low angst and a happy ending. It piqued my interest in the authors, and I’ll definitely take a look at some of their other books and series, of which there are several.

Check out some of my rave reviews for Sam Burns’s Rowan Harbor series. Blackbird in the Reeds (The Rowan Harbor Cycle #1), Wolf and the Holly (The Rowan Harbor Cycle #2), Fox and Birch (The Rowan Harbor Cycle #3), Hawk in the Rowan (The Rowan Harbor Cycle #4), Succubus and the City (The Rowan Harbor Cycle #4.5), Stag and the Ash (The Rowan Harbor Cycle #5), Adder and Willow (The Rowan Harbor Cycle #6), Eagle in the Hawthorn (The Rowan Harbor Cycle #7)