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Make Me Queen by C.R. Jane & May Dawson
Series: Rich Demons of Darkwood #5
Publication date: June 23rd, 2023
Pages: 361
Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Synopsis:
With my mother in the Demon's clutches, I'll do almost anything to buy her more time.
Like make a deal with the Demon.
I'll pay him with an enemy's death for my mother's life.
Long ago, dear old dad took me on a camping trip with his serial killer bestie before he broke their pinkie promises. Now the Demon wants the man dead. But when I come face to face with Uncle Carnage, strange memories start to surface.
Who am I, really?
What have I done?
Was every sin solely to survive?
When I don't know who I am, my men anchor me in reality. Cain's daddy dom vibes, Stellan's sweet way of seeing straight through me, Remington's easygoing genius, Pax's fierce protectiveness.
Then the Demon starts taking them away from me...
As the Demon unravels both my past and present, will I finally be able to bring him down?
Or will I always be daddy's little girl?
The epic conclusion to the Rich Demons of Darkwood series.
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Review:
Aurora had finally found the mother who had abandoned her after all these years and now she was being taken away from her again. Her father has escaped from prison and has taken her mother's captive. He threatens to kill her mother in hopes that by taking all the connections that Aurora has formed or reformed that it would bring back the bloodthirsty daughter he had groomed. In the pursuit of trying to play the game of the Demon's making the man starts stealing her lovers away one by one. First Paxton, then Remington, Stellan, and finally Cain. His aim is to leave Aurora alone in the world so she can remember who she was before all of them with her life. Add to that these memories that keep popping up in her mind that seem so real but she can't understand why she would ever be that vicious. Can she find a way to defeat her father, free her men and mother, and discover what of her past she has forgotten?
There were a lot of inconsistencies in the finale that left me feeling unfulfilled when I finished the book. One such instance was when Aurora had been fine with her mother abandoning her and forgave her for the action but then after its discovered why she abandoned her she suddenly grows cold to her mother. To the extreme of not really caring what happened to her in the end. That sort of flip should have really had more of a hard hitting reason than the one given. Like she abandoned her because she hated her and was selfish. The reason the authors chose didn't sit well with me and felt simplistic which wouldn't make Aurora react in such a way I wouldn't think.
Second issue I had was in how quickly they steamrolled through this dark secret from Aurora's past. They touched on it and hinted to it through out the series but to have it suddenly remembered the minute a TV was turned on seems a bit rushed. Wouldn't these memories be stronger than just a terrible case of deja vu whenever she let loose violently on someone? And I would have liked a little more back story around those memories and what she did and why she did it explained to me so I could figure out why she thought her men would be so disgusted by her antics when they had seen her do a lot of bad things and not batted an eye.
I did like Aurora and the guys starting to explore their dynamic a little more. The jealous and the in-fighting dried up and they all started to accept that this was something they were going to have to deal with or lose Aurora completely. There were some points where I could have sworn there would be some sword-crossing but they remained pretty platonic towards each other while devoting all their attention to Aurora.
Overall, I felt the series spread out a bunch of situations and trials then rushed through the ending. I realize the series was five books long and it needed to be thinned out to accommodate that number of books but the ending was just too neat and clean to the point of losing some of the character traits for the characters that made them who they were. By far the most disappointing of the books but not the worst one I have read this year.
