4.6 stars

This series is DELICIOUS. The secrets, the social tension, the engaging storyline... All of it has me eating out of this author's hand. I highly recommend this addicting series. ( )

3.75 Stars because I liked this more than book one but still not quite four stars. Still a very fun read though.

I'm trying to read series all at once, which I think is what most people do, because that seems like the best way for me to actually finish series and keep track of what is happening in the story and that's what I'm doing here. I do think that increased my enjoyment of this second book. This picks up basically right where book one ended with just a little bit of a time skip. I was a bit disappointed in that time jump because it led to us being told things that we could have been shown if there wasn't the time jump, but it's not that consequential so I'll forgive the book that.

The plot of this book did have some of the same problems as book one for me. I wanted some of the action and mystery elements to be more evenly distributed throughout the story. It felt like there was a lot of stopping and starting with that part so that the romance and the mystery felt a bit too separated for my taste, though this was better at the end. I did like the way the mystery and plot developed in this book. We don't learn too much information, that's to be somewhat expected in a four book series, but we did get enough to keep me interested.

I liked learning more about our main four characters in this book. There are still a lot of secrets but I do feel like I'm getting a better sense of the individual personalities of the guys. One of the biggest issues with some enemies-to-lovers reverse harem stories is that sometimes I feel like the guys are too similar because their only defining traits might be hating the girl. The guys in this book fall into that problem a bit but they are differentiated enough. Asher is the traditional lead guy who is the most mysterious and because of that I don't feel like I know too much about him yet but I know that will come in later books.

I'm honestly not completely sold on Madison Kate as a character. She's not bad and I don't dislike her or anything but she's supposed to be a sort of take-no-shit character and she doesn't completely come off like that to me. It's not because the guys take care of her and are overprotective. That's an element I like and expect in books in this genre. There's just something about her, particularly her consistently not seeming to take precautions about her safety out of anger, that made me not see her as tough as I think I'm supposed to. My advice to authors out there trying to write really badass romance heroines is to just write them how you would write an alphahole guy character.

I'm probably going to read a library book before reading the next book because I don't want to get behind on those but I am still definitely excited for book three. Even though I have some issues with this book and series these are still very fun to read and I do enjoy learning more about the plot and characters. The cliffhanger at the end of this book left me intrigued and ready to read book three. ( )