The beginning of this story starts out very strong, with our main character Sarita grappling with a creature that she considered to be her guardian angel murdering her husband on her wedding night. I was intrigued and was interested in how this creature came to be a staple in her life, as the story unfolded to allow us to learn more. Sarita becomes suspicious of this creature and begins to believe that it was never an angel to begin with, but perhaps something stalking her throughout her life. We learn quite a few ways this creature, “Angelo,” had saved her life a few times before, and each way could potentially be seen with a much more significantly sinister light.

However, I had to DNF this at about 44% in, as we are given another POV character that suddenly changes the plot significantly. Whereas before, we were only in our main character’s head, we now are within her estranged mother-in-law’s as well as another one of the same creatures as Sarita’s “guardian angel.” At first, I thought this POV shift to be interesting, but as the story developed I started becoming less and less invested until I realized I was skimming this novel at multiple parts. I wound up stopping reading when I was reading a longer chapter that had a significant amount of violence and blood/gore, but realized I was hardly paying attention to anything going on - including the action.

I don’t believe my issues with this novel are with anything to the structure or storytelling, but rather that I was much more invested in the story when this “Angelo” creature was working alone, and the mystery surrounding him. However, this story quickly develops into “secret society/cult” territory, which I tend to neither find fascinating nor something to be invested in, and that is when the story began to lose my interest. I do suggest checking out this novel for yourself to see what you think, as it begins strong and I could see this as a great novel for someone (unlike me) who enjoys secret cult stories.

Thank you to Netgalley and Tor Publishing Group for a copy of this e-ARC for an honest review.