Reviews with content warning for Torture - There Is No Devil

I enjoyed a lot more of the backstory than I did the actual current plot. And the plot itself felt a little bit undersold. I think that there was so much more that could've been explored, and I found the swap of the two serial killers' control was really interesting and a good tie-back to the beginning of the first book. I would've loved to see a bit more unraveling of the MMC. The FMC got over a lot of things faster than I expected her to, and she was surprisingly chill with a lot of the unhinged, illegal things going on.

I would've enjoyed more of an exploration of her dark side, seeing her become more twisted as we see the "twisted" MMC become more humanized. Overall, I think this duet is moreso for the people who want a sexual story than one with equal amounts of plot. It wasn't really for me, but it helped me shape my taste and know what I want in darker fiction.

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erinlaura's review

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fast-paced

Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

3.25⭐️

I think the novelty wore off in this one unfortunately. By the middle I really wanted to look away from the train wreck but I’m not a quitter, and I don’t feel right reviewing books that I haven’t finished. So I finished it, and it lived up to my fairly low expectations.

The first one was interesting in its unpredictability. The second one.. not so much. This went down pretty much as expected. More murder, dealing with “unfinished business” all over the place, and everyone continuing to treat the FMC Mara badly (except for the MMC Cole and his staff of course).

We learn more about the exceedingly terrible childhoods of both of the main characters. None of it is particularly surprising, but we get to hear lots about Mara’s trauma and see her put it to use in her art, that of course is suddenly wildly successful because of course it is.

Like in book 1, the couple has frequent interludes where they spout off eye-rollingly cheesy thoughts and dialogue. They seem to love to wax poetic about themselves and one another in a way that seems completely at odds with their usual behaviour.

The beginning started out spicy but didn’t really escalate much or stay central to the story. Of course there were little snippets, and comments made, but I really expected them to get even more unhinged as they started murdering together because sex and violence really seem to go hand in hand with these two.

All in all, Cole still creeps me out, Mara’s clearly still very damaged from her childhood

despite some late-book catharsis

and this reads more like a cautionary tale than a romance.

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