Raising Hell by Aurelia Skye

4 Stars

This novel was cleanly written and well edited, with few if any typos that I caught. I have read the previous novels in this series and quite enjoyed them, but it had been quite a long time since the previous novel in this series was released, so I was pleased the author had written another installment in this series after a significant time gap. The world building and characterization in this novel was quite good, and the development of the romantic relationships between the heroine and the three heroes was deftly done, with the heroine being a mature, clear communicator and the three heroes doing a good job of also being clear, mature communicators when the heroine would call them on their behavior. It was quite refreshing and enjoyable to read a romance where the characters exhibited healthy relationship skills, when so many romance novels employ the very tiresome Refusal to Communicate trope or the very tiresome Refusal to Acknowledge or Pursue What I Want trope. This novel uses the Woman Shortage trope, which is an enjoyable variation on the Mars Needs Women trope without any aliens being involved. Most of the overarching plot elements introduced in this novel were unresolved by the end of this novel, which made the ending somewhat abrupt and a little unsatisfying. Especially if there is another significant time gap between the release of this novel and the next novel in this series like there was between the last novel in this series and this novel. The ending had a technical HEA ending, as far as the romantic relationship goes, so that was more satisfying than a true cliffhanger ending, which I usually despise. I recommend this novel to readers who enjoy post-apocalyptic romance novels or reverse harem romance novels which have an HEA ending instead of a cliffhanger. I enjoy reverse harem storylines, but I don't read most reverse harem romances because most of them are multi-book series which end on cliffhangers. This was a highly enjoyable exception.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.