"Vowed in Shadows," Jessa Slade

Pros: Interesting world with plenty of explosive action and raw sexuality
Cons: Somewhat predictable
Rating: 4 out of 5

Review book courtesy of Penguin Group

Jonah Walker was a missionary before he became possessed by a repentant demon and found himself trapped in an eternal fight against evil. Recently he lost a hand to that fight—an injury that even his demon can’t undo. That loss makes him less than able to carry out his purpose, and has left him on the brink of despair. Now, he finds himself drawn to a newly-made possessed, Nim, a stripper who really didn’t count on spending eternity killing demons. She’s one of the very few female possessed in existence, and together with Jonah she has the potential to take control of powers the rest of the Talya haven’t even imagined. The only problem is, the two of them have to work together to make that happen—and the demon-possessed don’t play well with others.

Jessa Slade’s Vowed in Shadows: A Novel of the Marked Souls follows her Seduced by Shadows and Forged of Shadows. The first book, Seduced, definitely pulled me in, but I wasn’t fond of the dynamic between the main characters in Forged.

Vowed comes in closer to Seduced than Forged. There’s plenty of exciting action, and the arc plot definitely progresses in interesting directions. The raw sexuality is hot and wonderful. However, the book was a bit predictable and I’m still not entirely fond of the level of argumentativeness and misunderstanding between the romantic leads. I get that to some extent it makes sense, particularly with such maladjusted characters, but it’s too similar from book to book. I get impatient with it and just want the characters to get a clue after a while. At least it wasn’t as bad with Nim and Jonah as it was with Jilly and Liam, however, and I like the chemistry between these two.

The world-building is still interesting, with angel-possessed, repentant demons, and djinn, as well as the monstrous tenebrae, keeping things dangerous and engrossing.