A review by rachelroo13
A Touch of Malice by Scarlett St. Clair

2.0

Ok, the first book was good. The second book was not great, but I wanted to press on because I was interested to see where the plot went. This book however... was not good. There was very little that I enjoyed about it, and I have more questions than answers. For one, the actual writing was very repetitive, with the same thoughts being said more than once by Persephone just pages after she said them the first time. I understand that she has PTSD from the thing with Pirithous, and that can manifest in a lot of ways, but it seemed to only appear when it was convenient for the plot. Also, she had trouble manifesting her magic for all three books and then suddenly when the battle with the gods came she was a master of it? Just a few scenes earlier she had failed to use it in battle during training. There were times I wanted to tear my hair out as St. Clair spent actual paragraphs explaining the game Egyptian rat screw or never have I ever. And don't even get me started on the masochism and the number of times "Just remember I love you" was said before someone beat the crap out of Persephone. It felt like this book was meant for spice with just barely thinking of the plot, and while that's fine for some people I need plot and good writing to keep my interest.