Reviewer: Holly Hardest Fall by Juliette Cross
Series: Dominion #2
Also in this series: Darkest Heart, Coldest Fire
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Publication Date: February 25, 2019
Format: eBook
Source: Purchased
Point-of-View: Alternating First Person
Cliffhanger: View Spoiler »
Content Warning: View Spoiler »
Genres: Fantasy, Paranormal Romance
Pages: 270
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Reading Challenges: Holly's 2021 Goodreads Challenge
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Series Rating:
The tattooed demoness, Bone, doesn’t like anything except the magical weapons she makes. But she has hidden talents few know about. When I was brought to her near death, she used her Seraph song to manipulate flesh and bone to heal me. But she wasn’t happy about it.
Now I must return the favor. Even though she refuses to take sides in the apocalypse, there’s one job she’s not willing to do for the demon prince Rook. If she doesn’t, her head will end up on a spike. Of course, there’s a good chance we’re all going to die anyway, but I will do anything to protect this fierce woman—and not just because she saved me.
So, we’re both off to kill a demon—or three—and possibly save the world.
Each book in the Dominion series is STANDALONE:* The Deepest Well (prequel)* Darkest Heart* Hardest Fall
Hardest Fall by Juliette Cross is the second book in the Dominion series. I was ridiculously excited to read this book since it features two of my favorite characters from the first book. Bone, the badass weapons maker and Xander, a demon hunter. Sadly, I didn’t end up loving this as much as I hoped I would. The second half was much better, but I spent the entire first half seriously pissed at Xander.
Bone was once a Seraph, an angel with a heavenly voice who used to sing to bring humans solace and peace. Now she’s a fallen angel – a demoness weapons maker – the best in the business. When her friend Dommiel shows up with a wounded Xander, she uses all her formidable power to save his life. She grafted him a metal heart, she had to imbue it with her essence. She expects a bit of gratitude, but Xander shows none.
Xander is equal parts amazed and horrified that Bone was able to save his life. He fully expected to die, and he’s awed by her power in keeping him alive, but having her essence inside of him makes him uncomfortable. Plus, he hates that she won’t choose a side. She claims to be neutral, but how can she supply weapons to demons and angels alike? He’s determined to show her that she needs to fight on the right side – his side.
I really wanted to like Bone. The way she was described in the first book, I thought she was such a badass character. Full of inner fire, a deep talent for weapon-making, and covered in tattoos, you’d think she’d be a hardass, but she was also compassionate and loyal to those she cared about. While I loved the darker aspects of her character, we didn’t see a lot of that in this book. She spent most of the book trading barbs with Xander – and losing every verbal exchange. She also seemed less confident in this book. I understand that she was still trying to atone for past mistakes, but she seemed so much more sure of herself in the first book. There wasn’t a lot of her creating weapons or fighting in this book, either, which I think worked against her character development. We saw her kickass abilities in the first novel, but we were only told about them here.
For the first half of the book, Xander was arrogant and smug, to the point of being insufferable. He knew better than Bone, in all things, forever. I think it was meant to be endearing, that he wanted her to choose a side and forgive herself, but the way he went about it just pissed me off. He did get better in the second half. He stopped being such a bastard about her, and she seemed to open up a bit more. But he never really recovered for me from the first half when he was such a jerk.
I do like the world, and I enjoyed the secondary plot. While the romance wasn’t my favorite and this wasn’t the kickass I AM WOMAN, HEAR ME ROAR book I expected, I did enjoy the world and the secondary characters. I am looking forward to the next book in the series. Bring on Uriel and Nadya!
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Dominion
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