A Witch's Guide to Fake Dating a Demon; Sarah Hawley

The premise of this paranormal, urban fantasy romance sounds super cute, even if, admittedly, I wasn’t going to read this book. You see, I wanted to mainly read book 2 in this little series of “semi” stand alone romances, but then I found out how big of a role the main couple in book 2 play in “A Witch’s Guide to Fake Dating a Demon”, and here we are. Mariel is a very powerful nature witch. This fact is never, ever hidden. Yet some how nature witches aren’t considered powerful? Or just not flashy enough to be deemed that impressive so Mariel struggles to gain her families approval. She struggles so much that she accidentally summons a demon when she means to summon flour, and now he can’t leave until he makes a deal for her soul. Queue the romcom hijinks with all the forced proximity, sunshine and grumpy love interests, and sort of enemies to lovers. Honestly there are so many tropes in this romance that it felt like the author was going through a check list at times, but that wouldn’t have bothered me if the FMC hadn’t done something to make me knock a whole star off this rating.

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There are some really funny interactions in this book, don’t get me wrong. Oz and Mariel can make for a cute, odd couple pairing with Oz knowing next to nothing about the human world, and Mariel knowing next to nothing about the demon plane. Mariel’s friend group is fun and they are all quirky without their quirks becoming their entire personality. Oz is really sweet and I genuinely liked him and his arc in this story. Out of everything, Oz and his arc with his mentor was the most fleshed out in my opinion. And while I liked Mariel’s love for nature (fellow green thumb plant mom here), she got to be incredibly frustrating, especially during an incident at about the 80% mark of the book.

I’ll try to be vague given how late in the book my biggest issue pops up. But let’s just say, the entire conflict that Mariel and Oz have is the fact that he is a demon and cannot leave her side until he has her soul, those are the rules. He never hides that fact. In fact, despite how often Mariel is told demons are manipulative in order to get said souls, Oz literally never lies to her, never manipulates her, and falls for her far too quickly for this book to be considered a slow burn by any stretch of the imagination. He proves time and time again that he is on Mariel’s side, and then something happens and she picks a nuclear option that was very far from ok for me personally. And, while we’re on the subject, be forewarned that in literally the first chapter of this book, a chicken graphically explodes and it’s supposed to be this funny little thing. I don’t know, it was a tonally very odd way to start a romance.

Honestly this novel was never really going to get a high rating from me, but it would have been a whole star higher if that “incident” hadn’t happened, or at least had been toned down to a more believable level, which is why this book is getting 2.5 stars. I minded THAT reaction a lot more than the fact that the twist was very obvious from the start, and the fact that Mariel’s parents (and really, all the “adults” in this story) are so emotionally vicious and over the top about everything (including discussing sex and genitalia) that they read like caricatures. In fact, they are so over the top that it’s super confusing as to why Mariel, an adult living on her own, so willingly puts up with them, and defends them for most of the book. I don’t know, maybe this is just further proof that Reylo coded romances are just not my thing. But yes, I am still going to read the next book, because that was what I wanted to do all along. SIGH.