This book exceeded all and more of my expectations. Vanessa Len creates a rich and intriguing world which sucks you in from the first sentence. It features some of the most iconic tropes and makes them her own to create a beautiful and exciting story. This first book in a new trilogy is perfect for fans of This Savage Song and is mixed with a little time travel.

Following a world where Monsters exist with human appearances where their power is to travel through time by touching the back of a human’s neck and stealing part of their lifespans. When Joan Chang-Hunt discovers that she is a monster after a horrific event she is forced to ally with Aaron Oliver who is part of a century long feud with the Hunt family. Whilst being hunted by the prophesised hero they are forced to flee to the 1990’s Joan is forced to figure out whether she wants to be part of the world of monsters or not.

One of my favourite parts of this story was the time travel aspect. Len creates a solid structure for her time travel rules as soon as it is introduced making it so easy to understand which shows how much research went into this book. It was so interesting to see the various time eras that the duo travel to and seeing how they changed their clothing and how they interacted with the various people throughout. Len allows you to question the morality of what the monsters do to access their powers yet makes you want to still want them to succeed. It made me want to go and roam around the back streets of London in nineties clothes and explore the back alleys.

The other thing I loved about this book was the romance. I know who I was rooting for and it definitely wasn’t who Joan was rooting for. Aaron Oliver has my heart through and through. The way he grows as a person and learns throughout his experiences throughout the book was so interesting and so lovely to experience. Joan and his relationship growth was the perfect enemies to friends to almost something had me rooting for them the entire time.

This book was everything I wanted and made me fall back in love with the YA genre. The characters, the world building, the romance was all perfection and is perfect to bring you out of the reading slump you may be in. With all of my favourite tropes wrapped in a perfect story with loveable characters I would recommend this book to everyone. The ending left me heartbroken and I can not wait for the rest of the trilogy to be released!