Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5)
Hi friends! How is your Sunday going? I just finished Devour Me by one of my all-time favorite authors, Emily Rath. I was beyond excited to receive this book on NetGalley from the folks at Avon and Harper Voyager for my review. Now, this has been a busy week for me. As a soccer fan, I have season tickets to our MLS club and we had 2 matches this week, as you may have noticed if you follow me on TikTok, so it did make reading this e-book take a little longer than I wanted it to because, believe me, I wanted to DEVOUR this book in one sitting!
Devour Me is a romance set in Burr Island where Jasper is a shop owner and uncle to Phoebe. Phoebe is in college with Birdie, who is getting her PhD. But after she gets called into the bursar’s office, did that Hamilton song pop into your head or was it just me… because of a problem with her payment for summer coursework, she heads over to talk to the professors she was supposed to help this summer, only to find out that they are packing up and moving on after taking new positions. After Birdie’s summer plans go haywire, Phoebe steps in, gets Birdie a job in her uncle Jasper’s shop on Burr Island, and a place to stay while she visits her boyfriend overseas. Jasper reluctantly agrees to Phoebe’s plan. One night, Birdie thinks she saves Jasper from being mugged by some punks wearing skeleton gloves while he was taking out the trash. Only, Jasper is not only a shopkeeper, he is a witch, and the head of the coven. That was a wraith, not a mugger, and for some reason Birdie was able to stop the wraith!?! Well, that has never happened before in all of history.
The Wraith, or Dainn the Devourer, has been spending about 200 years devouring souls under the command of another. And when he was told he had to devour Jasper’s soul, he was excited to finally have a soul worth devouring after years of eating maggots. He finally got to eat a fresh, ripe, juicy apple. Only to have Pickles, the not a cat, warn Birdie that something was wrong, and she saw Jasper’s soul being eaten. He does not know how a mere human was able to stop the wraith, but he is not about to look a gift horse in the mouth, so he takes her back to his place to kind of protect her in case the wraith comes back. Only when the wraith does, he tells Jasper he is bound, a slave to a witch who wanted him dead, and that he wants Jasper’s help to free him from his bonds and, in exchange, he will let him live. Only Jasper wants more than just to live, he wants to protect his coven and friends and their secrets, and even Birdie and Dainn, who are becoming more than just the wraith who tried to kill him and his shop girl. So much more.
I got the e-book for this and it was so hard to put down when I had to do mundane human chores. Why can’t I have a magical cleaning spell to do all my tasks like Hortie? I hate that this book ended on a cliffhanger. This book is not even out yet and now I need to wait until book 2! Do not mind me while I try to find a mind reader to get some notes from Dr. Emily Rath to see what is going to happen to this trio. Etsy witches, here I come.
Until then, I will personally be picking up the deluxe version and, of course, the audiobook because I need to hear the sweet narration of Megan Wicks, Shane East, and Gregory Salinas bring Birdie, Jasper, and Dainn to life, as well as have that trophy for my shelf. I also am beyond excited to see Emily Rath at Love Struck Books in Boston on August 13th. If you are a fan of paranormal romance, I highly recommend picking up this book in every form available on August 4th.
Until next time, my friends, let me know who your favorite Etsy witch is below, and may you have nothing but 5-star reads for your own reads.