I kind of knew going in that I would enjoy this, because it came highly recommended to me by my sister, whose tastes are very similar to mine. What I didn't expect was how invested in the characters I became. They're all very well written, and David and Moira particularly stole my heart. On paper, I should have liked Rhys the most, but I just found him very whiny and too easy to wind up and hold a grudge - also a little too entitled for my taste. But he's an excellent character nonetheless. One thing that frustrated me throughout the book, is how little David's friends seem to respect the fact that he's a recovering alcoholic, who's trying very hard to remain sober. Everyone around him just drinks like he's not fighting against his impulses every time. I was particularly annoyed at the 'Let's order thai' scene, where both David and Moira felt the need to drink a beer around him, when they were in the house that (technically) belongs to him. At no point did anyone check with him how he was doing and if it was okay for them to have alcohol around him. It's a minor point, but it frustrated me quite a bit throughout the book (though not enough for me to take a star out of my rating). That aside, it's an excellent book about people dabbling in the occult. I love books that are characters and relationships driven, and this book did both very, very well. So I had an excellent time reading it.

Favorite character: David Favorite quote: He was looking at him like they were twenty again, like they might be able to get it right this time, orbiting each other's spheres without burning too hot or swallowing each other alive. David: Occult crime prince / alpha lawyer with an irresistible impulse to perform Rhys: Would probably rather come out as bisexual to his mother than deface an antiquarian book Moira: Everything blooms under her touch, except the death demanding to speak to her Those three characters with a messy history get entangled in dissolving an ancestral deal with a demon. You get occult practices, a Faustean deal, a secret magical society, complex relationships, rivals/enemies to lovers and three people trying to figure out their in dynamic. Is there anything else you could want?!

Evocation - The act of bringing or recalling a feeling, a memory, or an image to the conscious mind. The action of invoking a spirit or deity…. When a family curse threatens to upend David’s very existence, he has little option but to turn to the only person within the living realm capable of his trust, his ex-boyfriend, Rhys - which also means doing something he never, ever wanted to do: open his heart to Moira, Rhys’s wife. And that will be no easy task. The day David Aristarkhov’s occultist and belligerent father died, he did what anyone else would do within reason, he bought himself an Audi, drank every last drop of liquor in the house, and abandoned his life as a teen psychic prodigy. However, he is fast approaching his thirtieth birthday, now a Boston attorney, moonlighting as a medium for a secret society. However, David finds himself confronted with the fractured grin of the Devil who is there to collect on a deal made by David’s ancestor, and this is where Rhys comes in as he is the only one who can help. Yet it soon becomes clear that Moira won’t let him walk back into Rhys’s life that easily, and as they start to form an uneasy alliance, the trio become entangled within a web not only with the powers trying to demand David as payment, but with each other, it won’t just be the curse that they will have to face when old feelings start coming to the surface and Rhys will have to admit that maybe it wasn’t all bad with David. Even if that sounds absurd to his own logic. Yet left with little choice, all three of them must do what needs to be done. Gothic, full of magic, delightfully elegant, and with a spark of sensuality in the air, I simply have this to say: David, please stand on my neck. Respectfully.

Oh my god oh my GOD!!!! Five stars five stars five stars someone hold me. I truly did not think my expectations for this book could be met, but they were succeeded!! The vibes? Impeccable. The characters? Would die for them. The relationship? So well-crafted I could talk about it for days. Run, don’t walk!! Preorder this book!!

One of my favorite reads of 2024. Eagerly excited for the next.