You would think after helping save her boyfriend from an eternity in Hell that things would go back to normal. Well, as normal as life can be when you can see souls and your boyfriend is Death. But for Pagan Moore, things are just getting weirder.
The high school quarterback and reigning heartthrob, Leif Montgomery, is missing. While the town is in a frenzy of worry, Pagan is a nervous wreck for other reasons. Apparently good ‘ol Leif isn’t your average teenage boy. He isn’t even human. According to Death, Leif doesn’t have a soul. The quarterback may have skipped town but he’s still showing up in Pagan’s dreams... uninvited.
Dank has known from the beginning Leif wasn’t human. But he hadn’t worried about a simple soulless creature. Now, he realizes he made a grave mistake. Pagan’s soul has been marked since birth as a restitution, to a spirit so dark not even Death walks near it. Dank knows saving Pagan’s soul won’t be easy but Pagan is his. And he’s already proven he’ll defy Heaven to keep her. If Hell wants a piece of him too, then bring it on.
All right guys I want to first call foul on the fact that Dank has known all through the first book that Leif isn't what he claims to be, but it doesn't occur to him to maybe warn Pagan? Whether or not Leif was dangerous was besides the point--at one time or other Pagan was contemplating dating that guy or was dating him. It just didn't seem prudent to keep that information from her to me.
Aside from that, I found this book to be even more intriguing. Glines mixes in some voodoo mysticism and a lot of the odd little coincidences that made up Pagan's life are given answers. Really creepy answers, especially once we find out who Leif is and what his dad is in charge of, but answers. And everyone's favorite YA paranormal trope of the either negligent or absentee parents really hits its stride with Pagan's mom.
Dank alternates between being the world's best boyfriend to the world's biggest a-hole, much of which is caused by the aforementioned inability to tell Pagan necessary details in a timely fashion. This really backfires on him when one of Pagan's best friends is put in the crossfire over her affections (though I'm tempted to blame that mostly on her mother and her really bad decision making skills). And if I'm understanding the third book's synopsis rightly, the consequences of that make Dank's life even worse.
Part of what keeps me so intrigued by the books is that I don't know how Glines will reconcile things. Will there be a happy ending for them as a couple? Will Glines instead go another route, that is hinted at in this book? Is there a totally different route where everyone dies by rocks? I really want to know. Her writing is quick, well paced and not overly dramatic all things considered. I do judge Pagan for some of her actions though--she loses the plot at times in favor of high dramatics. Of course if she didn't, then there wouldn't be much way for Leif to be super-shadester (and he likes to be one).
And Leif? I sincerely did not like him when I thought he was human. His actions in this book? SO SUPER SHADY. Seriously. Let me just pop in when you have five seconds to yourself and try to seduce you away--oh but wait first let me lie a few dozen times, inadvertently threaten everyone you love and then try to force you to like me again. Oh and let's not forget all but emotionally crippling you in order to get you to go with me back home.
I'd love to know what drug he was on that made him so freaking delusional.
Book 3 Ceaseless, which is the end of the series, promises a change to the dynamic and I'm hopefully its a GOOD change. As I said above Glines has written this pretty much with an open-ended 'will they be together?' sort of question hanging over top. Its a toss up whether it would be better for them to be or better for them not to be, though I'll say this much. I'm not that interested in the new guy (or old guy, or well whatever), but there's been very little said about him so maybe that'll change.
