Reviews with content warning for Murder - There Is No Devil

Reviews tagging 'Murder'

There Is No Devil by Sophie Lark

64 reviews

mayjulyn's review

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dark tense

Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.0

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jessanicolesingh's review

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dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Not only do I give both of these 5 ⭐️, but I can confidently say this is my FAVORITE duet/series to date! This author figured out the perfect balance of steam and plot, and had some downright funny scenes too.

Our MMC, a psychopath and sculptor, is involved in an ongoing rivalry with a fellow artist and serial killer, who “gifts him the FMC. What is mostly characterized as a dark romance of stalking and obsession, somehow manages a slow burn love simultaneously. It features a game of wits and survival, and also overcoming childhood trauma. The first book in the set has a faster paced plot, while the second covered more timeline overall. The accompanying music playlist suggestions were on point with this one, I truly felt immersed in this story.

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spatterson7's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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aepompu's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I didn’t love this one as much as the first in the duet, however it did have a very satisfying conclusion so thank God for that.

🌶️🌶️🌶️/5

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smcrain's review

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Hrm, maybe 3.75 stars here. There are things I like about this series and things I don't. It's not life changing by any stretch, but was it enjoyable? Yes, I was interested enough to keep going all the way through both books. As I said there's a personal humor to the setting of them being fine artists, this continues that line for me in the second book with the of the art shows, interviews, a flashback to art school. I will give Ms. Lark props for either having some art experience, or having done some research into it; because there's definitely a few times where I had the thought that the author must make art. Another thing I enjoy in this series, not just this book, is overall the dynamic between Cole and Mara. I really enjoyed how they changed one another over the course of the book.

Honestly, Cole changed more than Mara, or Mara's felt a little less believable, but

I enjoyed that aspect. I'm honestly not one to highlight or mark passages in books, but I will say that there are some really nice lines and thoughts sprinkled throughout this series. There were several moments, that gave me pause to where I would read a line and think, "I would highlight this" if I were that type of reader. Overall, I like Sophie Lark's idea of a dark but healthy relationship.

Things I didn't like, and this isn't dislikes so much as maybe didn't quite hit the mark for me. The backstories.

I mean it's honestly a hard sell to write someone so broken and abused that they resort to murder. It's not the author's fault I've read it in other works, usually fan works, but still it rarely convinces me. This was kind of no exception. Also, I don't know if it's just a truth universally known that stepfather's are a$$holes? or it just so happens that mine also fit this mold so well, that it just seemed too cliche for me. God, somewhere out there there has to be decent men who don't emotionally abuse and treat their step kids like sh*t. Okay, I know it's totally not a fault of the author's that this stuff hit too close to home for me, that my coping mechanism is to scoff.

Again overall I enjoyed the book. Some of the stuff seemed sped through, the coping of some deaths way too fast, but at the same time I don't think I would care/want to read through the actual emotional reaction to that. So while I'm like this seems too unrealistic, I'm also like okay with it being omitted. WOW, I'm such a demanding reader.

I will say, and my favorite thing about this series, is that there are actual book illustrations sprinkled throughout the works. I applaud Sophie Lark for supporting artists and illustrators. That really put a smile on my face. Do the characters look like I imagined in my head, not exactly, no. But did she commission someone to illustrate her work; Yes, and for that I'll be looking at her other works, because now more than ever it's hard for illustrators to get work. I love that she's supporting artists in that way.

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taelorslibrary's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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hapalyn's review

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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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olivia_k_wood's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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hereiskyra's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No

3.5

The first 25-50% of this book was not my cup of tea but it really picked up in the last half and I enjoyed the more thriller elements and less of the weird back and forth psycho romance nonsense (sorry, their relationship is a little odd).

I think the longer we get to see Mara and Cole grow as characters, I liked them both less. I’m not sure why but Mara’s personality gets on my nerves.

But, like I said, the last half of the book was great so it really brought it all together well and made up for a little bit of the weird vibes.

Tropes/themes:
Stalker/Obsessive MMC

Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️

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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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