Sweet Peril (The Sweet Trilogy #2) by Wendy Higgins (website, twitter, facebook)
Publication: April 30th, 2013 by HarperTeen
Pages: 374
Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal Romance, Angels, Demons
Synopsis: Goodreads
Purchase: Amazon
[book rating=4.5/5.0]
Anna Whitt, the daughter of a guardian angel and a demon, promised herself she’d never do the work of her father—polluting souls. She’d been naive to make such a vow. She’d been naive about a lot of things.
Haunted by demon whisperers, Anna does whatever she can to survive, even if it means embracing her dark side and earning an unwanted reputation as her school’s party girl. Her life has never looked more bleak. And all the while there’s Kaidan Rowe, son of the Duke of Lust, plaguing her heart and mind.
When an unexpected lost message from the angels surfaces, Anna finds herself traveling the globe with Kopano, son of Wrath, in an attempt to gain support of fellow Nephilim and give them hope for the first time. It soon becomes clear that whatever freedoms Anna and the rest of the Neph are hoping to win will not be gained without a fight. Until then, Anna and Kaidan must put aside the issues between them, overcome the steamiest of temptations yet, and face the ultimate question: is loving someone worth risking their life?
All out full disclosure: I love Wendy Higgins, I loved Sweet Evil more than anything when I read it last year, and I love that I received an ARC (Advance Reader Copy) from her publisher in exchange for my honest review.
Spoiler-free Review
Wendy’s writing is so smooth and real it makes you eat up this story quickly. She is a genius at romance, I mean I have a lot of fictional boyfriends, but Kaidan Rowe has quickly become one of my top favorites. And from what I read from others, Kai is up there on many a girl’s lists!!
In this middle book of a planned trilogy, Anna has to change her lifestyle and become a little less ‘sweet’ in order to survive now that her identity has been revealed to the Dukes & demon whisperers, and she falls into the party girl role a little too easily, but that is no surprise as it is in her nature, her father being the Duke of Substance Abuse. Her life then takes some unexpected turns throughout the beginning of the book, including forcing herself to stay as separated as she can from the irresistible Kai in order to stay alive and under the radar of the rest of the Dukes.
As the blurb mentions (see spoiler free) Anna is given a message of hope for the Nephilim race, and her father has decided to send her on some secret missions to try and share this hope to other Neph who might help them gain their freedom from their ‘work’ and possible live normal lives. This is very important to Anna, whose love for Kaiden is forbidden even though Anna isn’t positive how Kai feels about her, but knows that overall this message of hope is extremely important for not just her but all the Neph.
There is action, suspense and of course sweet, sweet romance. This isn’t called the Sweet Trilogy for nothing! The few scenes with Anna & Kaidan are pure fun and fire…especially as Kai struggles to come to grips with the fact that staying away from Anna is harder than he ever imagined. Some readers may hate that Kai & Anna aren’t together for most of the book unlike Sweet Evil, but sometimes the suspense is much more fierce as they both finally come together in the book. Come on, that’s not a spoiler, you think Ms. Higgins wouldn’t give us all the Kai time she could?!
So I rate this sequel 4.5 hearts out of 5, because there was just a little something missing in this book than the first, but that is not unusual for sequel in a trilogy. I do think it was way better than a lot of other sequels I read this past year, and I eagerly await the finale, Sweet Reckoning, to be tentatively released in the Summer of 2014. Don’t be sad, this is good news as it was previously expected to be released in the Fall of 2014, so us ravenous fans have helped move up publication.
Sweet Peril is releasing tomorrow, so what are you waiting for, go buy it now!!