Review: Hardwood by Sam Burns & W.M. Fawkes
SYNOPSIS:
A playboy incubus in a pickle
A siren who’s lost his song
Malcolm McKittack’s life consists of the three Ps: pleasure, partying, and paranoia. Okay, maybe not usually the last one, but somebody’s been following him. He’s being hunted, doomed to be sacrificed on the altar of some old guy’s downstairs dysfunction, only no one believes him.
Kostas has never met anyone annoying as Malcolm Freaking McKittack. He comes into his bar every night, and leaves with his arm wrapped around the waist of someone new. He’s trouble, and Kostas doesn’t need any. It doesn’t matter how the incubus makes eyes at him, he’s not interested.
When Kostas witnesses Malcolm being kidnapped, he knows he shouldn’t get involved—it’s probably some creepy demonic game. But playing the hero fits him like Malcolm’s bespoke suit, and it’ll take them both to stop a plot that threatens the whole supernatural world.
REVIEW:
This story lacked the quirky charm of the earlier books in this series. And that is mostly because the first two stories paint Malcolm as the absolute worst. He is rude, insulting, disconnected, and burns bridges far faster than he builds them. Sam Burns and W.M. Fawkes try to paint him with a tragic childhood but it just isn’t enough for me to forgive his complete *ss hole behavior.
Kostas was a delight, I was positively captivated by the siren. And then there is the kidnapping plot, which after things were revealed, I was left reeling. I didn’t like how everything played out but I was happy to see that Kostas and Malcolm were able to find some happiness. But again the story ended very abruptly and I found myself sitting here asking what happened to Sasha (Malcolm, Declan, and Jasper’s sister).
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