4 Stars

Genre: YA Paranormal Romance

Pages: 453

Publisher: Harper Teen

Target Audience: 16 and up

Good Reads Summary:
Embrace the Forbidden
What if there were teens whose lives literally depended on being bad influences?
This is the reality for sons and daughters of fallen angels.
Tenderhearted Southern girl Anna Whitt was born with the sixth sense to see and feel emotions of other people. She’s aware of a struggle within herself, an inexplicable pull toward danger, but it isn’t until she turns sixteen and meets the alluring Kaidan Rowe that she discovers her terrifying heritage and her willpower is put to the test. He’s the boy your daddy warned you about. If only someone had warned Anna.
Forced to face her destiny, will Anna embrace her halo or her horns?

So as I said in a previous post, I’ve wanted to read this book since it came out last year. It did not disappoint. It definitely does its job as a Young Adult Paranormal Romance, so if that’s not your cup of tea, you probably won’t like it. But if you’re like me, this is probably how you’ll feel reading this book:

Aside from having a really interesting take on Angels and Demons (which I’ll address in a minute), the relationship between Anna and Kaiden is an emotional roller coaster. I’m fairly dying to read the second book, Sweet Peril, to see how things move along. The gist of it is, Kaiden is the son of the Duke of Lust (they call the more powerful, sort of head honcho demons Dukes) and Anna is a goody-two shoes. I love it when a guy is fairly emotionless or blocked off until he meets the girl, and then he can be vulnerable and open with her. We didn’t quite make it there in Sweet Evil, although there were moments that were absolutely swoon worthy, but I am fully expecting more of those scenes later in the series. I enjoyed seeing Kaiden struggle against his nature as the son of Lust to try to understand how he really felt about Anna.

That being said, Kaiden was a real jerk. But at least he knew it. He owned up to the fact that he was being horrible.

I did get a little tired of Anna moping around and being all “Kaiden hates me. But I will LOOOOOVE him until the END OF TIME.” Now, I of course was glad she didn’t skip along, moving on super fast. But she like, stopped eating and going to school. Which is so not cool. Especially because a known jerk was a jerk to you. I wanted Anna to be a little more spunky. Get a little more of a backbone.

And then, the dreaded love triangle appeared.

Ah yes. The love triangle. How I hate thee. This is the one element I am not looking forward to exploring in the sequel. I do appreciate that Anna has very obviously different feelings for the two boys in question; and although the circumstances were reminiscent of Twilight, it was handled very differently (AKA much better). It really wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I am just very wary of love triangles.

So Angels are kind of in right now, if you haven’t noticed. Fallen by Lauren Kate, Angelfire  by Courtney Allison Moulton, Hush, Hush, by Becca Fitzpatrick…and those are just the first that came to mind. What I loved about Sweet Evil was the perspective of the different characters. Kaiden and the other Neph’s view of God, religion, Lucifer etc was very different from Anna’s and her father’s. I would be curious to know what Wendy Higgin’s worldview is after reading her book, as it seemed to have favorably Christian overtones. Of course, that could easily be her research and chosen point of view for the characters. I’m sure that if the book were written from Kai’s POV, it would read quite differently. I hope to see more of the inner workings of the Demon Hierarchy in Sweet Peril. And I hope the Warrior-Beast-Soldier Angels make another appearance. That was pretty awesome.

Sweet Evil kind of treks along singing “LALALA I’m a harmless Young Adult Paranormal Romance LALALA” and then suddenly it’s like BAM. Something horrifying slaps you in the face.

There was some crazy, creepy stuff in this book. Certainly not bad enough to warrant a higher age rating or change the genre to horror or anything, but it took me a little by surprise. I like that in a book, especially in this genre. So bravo to Wendy Higgins, who delivers a steamy and yet tender romance, surrounded by a fascinating take on the war between Angels and Demons. I will definitely be picking up Sweet Peril.