It’s 1872, and Celine Rousseau has just arrived in New Orleans to start a new life. After fleeing Paris, she’s hoping she can keep afloat in a place where no one knows who she is or what she’s done. Unfortunately, there’s a supernatural entity hellbent on taking her life, and it’s throwing a wrench in her plans. The longer Celine toes the line in her new life, the more she wonders who cares if her past catches up if she turns up dead first.
I received a sampler from G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers through NetGalley, which had some of the early chapters. When I got to the last chapter in the sampler, I was already so drawn into the story that I went ahead and picked up the book. We follow four different characters through their rotating perspectives: Celine, Bastien, and two mystery characters. The chapters following the two mystery men were a bit confusing at first, but once I realized it was two different characters, it was easy to get into the story. After a while, I figured out who one of the people was, but the other one came out of left field. I liked that surprise!
The pacing was pretty slow, but it was worth it. I think part of the problem is that I couldn’t understand why we needed four perspectives instead of one. Celine’s perspective was the most well developed and it was clear she was the main protagonist from the start. Meanwhile, the longer we followed Bastien, the more we failed to learn a whole lot. La Cour des Lions is deeply shrouded in mystery and he never shows us why he’s mysterious and devilish. He’s constantly being described as being devilish and the Lucifer in town, but we never once see anything that makes him live up to that name. Even when he’s supposed to be showing us his entire hand of cards, there was never actually anything there.
That said, I did really enjoy the book. There’s a vampire murder mystery that surrounds Celine, but the mystery isn’t the core of the story. That’s just how she finds herself being pulled deeper and deeper into the supernatural world. From the way she seems to be a supernatural entity without having discovered it yet, I fully expect her to eventually discover that she has her own supernatural abilities. I mean, we already have vampires and werewolves! Otherwise, I don’t know how the overall series will hold together for me.
There’s also an excellent cast of characters. I particularly liked following Celine and Pippa. I really liked how Pippa was the only one who actually sees Celine as who she really is. She also knows that when she acts untouchable and unbothered, that’s Celine’s ego as well as a mask even to herself. Bastien could be a cool character, but he seems to be a mostly generic so-called bad boy, and his friendships alway appear to be out of a sense of duty to his uncle. His uncle is actually the most interesting character in the story, which makes me wish this was a series where we follow a different character in each book. There’s also the detective and his family, who I really liked and hope to see a lot more of. Nonna was the best, so it’d be great if we got to see her again.
Overall, this was a great read. It was pretty light on the paranormal front at times, but I enjoyed following Celine’s story. I do think that having four perspectives is a bit much, and the romance is built purely on lust, but the story has a lot going for it and I’m excited to check out the next book. I hope to see the other plotlines improve since it looked like the story wasn’t supposed to be Celine’s story with the occasional view from two different vampires and some of their background stories coming through. It seemed like Bastien and the other characters were supposed to be more significant rather than just players in Celine’s story, so I hope to see things on this front improve with the next book.
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