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A review by bookish_kristina
The Archdemon in Auditing: A Sweet and Steamy Monster Romance by Ella Beck, Ella Beck
3.0
This had potential to be cute but ultimately it let itself down.
This started off really cute and the first chapter was vivid and fun but it quickly got off track. I think my biggest issue with this was the world building, it dominated the book and was extremely over described and very repetitive, ex. the word pure is used 14 times in 130 pages. The exposition became really redundant and felt like it was trying too hard. We get it, they are in the depths of hell, please stop beating us over the head with it! There really needed to be more focus on the relationship between Bax and Elara, they had good tension in the beginning but as the book went on it became about her office work and achievements and he spent his time avoiding her. They spent so little time together that I didn’t really buy the choices she made at the end.
Sometimes Bax’s pov was very funny and ott, and I wanted more of that, but so much time was spent being told about this hellscape where they lived and worked that the romance was rushed.
Also, a lot of this read like Lucifer fan fiction, you can tell the author was heavily influenced by that show, heavily. I liked that show, but this really lacked its charm. So nice try for a first novella, I just wanted less hell and office work and more romance and cuteness.
This started off really cute and the first chapter was vivid and fun but it quickly got off track. I think my biggest issue with this was the world building, it dominated the book and was extremely over described and very repetitive, ex. the word pure is used 14 times in 130 pages. The exposition became really redundant and felt like it was trying too hard. We get it, they are in the depths of hell, please stop beating us over the head with it! There really needed to be more focus on the relationship between Bax and Elara, they had good tension in the beginning but as the book went on it became about her office work and achievements and he spent his time avoiding her. They spent so little time together that I didn’t really buy the choices she made at the end.
Sometimes Bax’s pov was very funny and ott, and I wanted more of that, but so much time was spent being told about this hellscape where they lived and worked that the romance was rushed.
Also, a lot of this read like Lucifer fan fiction, you can tell the author was heavily influenced by that show, heavily. I liked that show, but this really lacked its charm. So nice try for a first novella, I just wanted less hell and office work and more romance and cuteness.