Synopsis

Calladia Cunnington knows she’s rough around the edges, despite being the heir to one of small-town Glimmer Falls’ founding witch families. While her gym obsession is a great outlet for her anxieties and anger, her hot temper still gets the best of her and manifests in bar brawls. When Calladia saves someone from a demon attack one night, though, she’s happy to put her magic and rage to good use . . . until she realizes the man she saved is none other than Astaroth, the ruthless demon who orchestrated a soul bargain on her best friend.

Astaroth is a legendary soul bargainer and one of the nine members of the demon high council—except he can’t remember any of this. Suffering from amnesia after being banished to the mortal plane, Astaroth doesn’t know why a demon named Moloch is after him, nor why the muscular, angry, hot-in-a-terrifying-way witch who saved him hates him so much.

Unable to leave anyone in such a vulnerable state – even the most despicable demon – Calladia grudgingly decides to help him. (Besides, punching an amnesiac would be in poor taste.) The two set out on an uneasy road trip to find the witch who might be able to restore Astaroth’s memory so they can learn how to defeat Moloch. Calladia vows that once Astaroth is cured, she’ll kick his ass, but the more time she spends with the snarky yet utterly charming demon, the more she realizes she likes this new, improved Astaroth… and maybe she doesn’t want him to recover his memories, after all.

Review

I absolutely loved A Witch’s Guide to Fake Dating so could not wait to pick this one up. Although it’s got all of the ingredients for a romantasy (hot demon; troubled witch; pending armageddon and werewolves), it fell a little flat for me. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I think the plot was weak compared to the first one.

Calladia is a total badass and I loved having a fitness fiend as the main character. As someone who lives in her gym kit most of the time and uses boxing as a stress buster, she was totally relatable and I loved her. Although I appreciate Astaroth had amnesia, he just didn’t seem like the type of guy she would go for – let’s face it, he was a bit pathetic and submissive. It would also have been nice to have more time with her friends as this was one of the things I loved about the first book.

The riddles and journey they went on was also pretty pointless and didn’t really add anything, not least because the minute the baddies showed up everything was resolved pretty quickly, which was disappointing. It’s still very readable and a little smutty but overall it felt rushed, compared to AWGTFDAD, which was one of my favourite reads last year.

Thanks to Gollancz for my proof copy. Opinions my own.

Other books by Sarah Hawley: A Witch’s Guide to Fake Dating a Demon