In Love With the Leshy

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I have read one other book involving a Leshy so I was really excited to have the opportunity to read another. Leshy make great romance reads, but I feel they are lesser known and used in books. If you do not know what a Leshy is, it is a pagan Slavic deity that rules over the forest, hunting, etc. They are essentially a type of forest spirit, can play tricks on others, shapeshift, etc. The story itself gives a little about the lore, such as one of the characters being a Druid and creating the Leshy in the story.

I feel like what a Leshy is comes off kind of easily to understand. It is very subtle. I, for the most part, really loved Em (the Leshy). The third act break up was a little intense. There are triggers in this book, though they are not listed in my ARC copy, unknown if they will be there listed in the book, but I do see one on the goodreads page.

I have two main issues with this book and why I feel it is more 3.5 stars if I could give it that. The first would be the flow of the book itself. Again, I have an ARC, so it very well can be cleaned up and read better in the official copy, so please take this for what it is worth. During the first couple of chapters, I was getting very confused because it would switch back and forth between a memory she had with her neighbor and back to her being chased in the forest by some bad guys. It would do this every few paragraphs, and wouldn’t use any kind of indication, like italics, that it was a memory. My other issue is with Erin, the FMC. I get that coming into contact with a Leshy or some other being you never knew existed can be a bit much, I just felt like Erin was incredibly wishywashy and overall unpleasant. She offended the few people around her and most of the animals she came across on a regular basis and was never really apologetic. Just snappy and like “well I never knew this existed give me a break,” without really making the effort to try.

If you are looking for a spicy book, this is not. There are some tense scenes during the story where there is some heavy petting and Erin trying to get Em to have some spicy times, but the actual spice is in the last 10ish% of the book. Again, their are some mild scenes, but its mostly Erin being thirsty, and understandably so LOL.

I rounded this book up because even with the reasons I disliked it, I still did enjoy the story. It has some dark themes, so be on the lookout for that. I still didn’t like Erin by the end, but it was good. I did read it in one sitting.