Review: The Flesh and the Devil

The Flesh and the Devil by Teresa Denys
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

For my comments and quotes while I read, a way more in depth look at my thoughts, Buddy Read The Flesh and the Devil


The beginning of this was really enjoyable, there was a great eerie Gothic tone that had mysteries and villains seemingly in the shadows everywhere with our young, extremely sheltered heroine Juana betrothed to a lunatic. Unfortunately, the mysteries and villains get wrapped up perfectly quickly and a lot of things happen disappointingly off-screen.

The middle introduces new villains but again, dealt with pretty quickly and from there things kind of meander into an unceremoniously mellow with added too perfect bow moment ending. The romantic relationship between the leads started off with some heat, spark, and burn as they clashed but then in Bodice Ripper fashion the hero rapes the heroine (the author clearly writes this as rape with minimal Juana foggily in her mind thinking her body could be responding) and with not a lot of emotional growth/connection featuring later in the story between the two, I lost their beginning chemistry.

The author did a fantastic job of setting the place and time, there was some inserted political talk, but my favorite was Juana's personal growth. Juana goes from being a, purposefully, sheltered naive girl to a solid capable woman and the author did a wonderful job showcasing all the bumps in the road it took her to get there.

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