5 out of 5 stars
E-book. 66 pages. Published May 10th 2018
Blurb:
*Small-town succubus meets snow white and they prove that all you need really is love.*
All his life, Sebastian has wanted to live in New York. Now he’s there, and it’s . . . underwhelming. He has no family, friends, or even close acquaintances there, and a personal tragedy has left him feeling more isolated than ever before. Maybe he’s a small-town succubus after all. He’s ready to throw in the towel when Finn Marshall crashes into in his life. The raven-haired enigma’s pick-up line is tantamount to a carjacking, and the night only spirals further out of control from there. Finn is on the run from his wicked stepmother, who wants to kill him so she doesn’t have to share his dead father’s fortune and power. Can he and Sebastian escape her huntsman and set things right?
Likes:
- Short and sweet.
- Good hook.
- Little bit of smut.
- Simple but interesting story.
- Sebastian’s succubus abilities.
Dislikes:
- Had to sign up for Sam Burns’ email list to get the story.
- Took me a while to figure out that I had to sign up for the email list.
I’m always impressed when authors can write a full, compelling story in a relatively small number of pages. Succubus and the City had a bit of a cliché storyline, what with Finn’s stepmother trying to murder him, but that didn’t detract from my enjoyment. If anything, the familiar story allowed the romance to shine.
Both Sebastian and Finn were fun characters. Neither of them got too much character development, but there was enough information about them to make them interesting to read about. Sebastian was especially sympathetic, given that he felt lonely even when living in New York City.
I liked the characterization of how Sebastian’s succubus powers worked. Like the rest of the story, there was enough information to satisfy my curiosity. I actually feel like this story explained more about how a succubus’s powers work than Stag and Ash, but that could also be because Sebastian was the main character and his brother, Sean, is a side character in Jesse’s story.
I have to give a shoutout to the beginning of the book, where Sebastian used the pronoun ‘they’ to describe Finn before he knew Finn’s gender. This was in part due to Finn’s attire, which included four-inch heels. The inclusivity was nice, as was the fact that Sebastian is pansexual.
My one complaint about this story was that I did have to sign up for Sam Burns’ email list to get it. I’m not against author email lists, but I tend to forget about side stories like this one, and don’t always read them. Plus, I had a hard time figuring out where to go to get the story. It wasn’t explained in the blurb that the story is a bonus for joining the email list. I actually had to turn to Google.
Overall, while I don’t think this story needs to be read to enjoy the rest of the series, it was a fun, quick, easy read. A little bit of tension, drama, and smut all rolled into one. All for the low low price of free.
Check out my rave reviews for the rest of the 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), 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), as well as Sam Burns’s collaboration with W.M. Fawkes on Poisonwood (Poisonwood & Lyric #1).
Love is Love Reviews 