Finding your soul mate is the ultimate dream come true. But for Samara Marshall, it's a matter of life and death. . . After falling for a Cambion and then turning into one herself, Samara never thought her senior year could get more complicated. The gaps in her memory, the mysterious deaths, and the constant danger that threaten her once quiet town have a common thread: Tobias, a demon with a lot of enemies. He's also Samara's other soul mate and he's suddenly disappeared. Samara knows the key to finding Tobias lies with her inner demon, who has her own agenda and threatens to take over completely. But Samara isn't the only one who wants to find Tobias. His enemies are getting closer, and their plans for retribution could mean deadly consequences for Samara and her true soul mate, Caleb. . . 'Jaime Reed's books are irresistible.' --Ann Aguirre, author of Enclave Praise for The Cambion Chronicles 'Sexy and snarky! I dare you not to laugh while reading this fantastic debut.'--Kody Keplinger, author of Shut Out 'With a sassy, kick-ass heroine, Jaime Reed's Living Violet will keep readers turning pages late into the night.' --Eileen Cook, author of Unraveling Isobel 'Jaime Reed's books are irresistible. They couldn't be more delicious if they were made of cake and frosted in chocolate.' --Ann Aguirre, author of Enclave
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Sam wakes up at home to find her Cambion, Lillith,freaking out and a massive gap in her memories and a note from Lillith askingher to not poke at the gap and just accept the missing time.

Lillith really should know Sam better than that.

Still Sam has a lot on her mind – there’s her continuedcomplicated relationship with Caleb, the investigation by the Santiago familyof Cambions that could see Caleb dead (and their investigator entering arelationship with her mother), her best friend is still on the outs with herand Angie, another Cambion family head, is coming to visit from Poland.

And there’s Tobias – the incubus has just disappearedsince her memory lapse and they have to wonder when he’s coming back and whatactually happened to him

This concludes, neatly, the Cambion story – it’s alwaysgood to see a series ending that actually addresses all points and closes alldoors, especially one that does it as well as this.

There were a few elements that I generally findirritating with teenaged protagonists – like Sam and Caleb running off on theirown to solve their Tobias problem despite everything at stake and Sam’s motherdeciding if she puts her foot down she can make everything go away. But on theformer case we actually have a very good reason for their secrecy – since theCambion families are quite happy to accept some collateral damage that ispersonally unacceptable to Sam. And, in the latter case, Sam’s mother can betalked round and made to see sense (kind of) beyond her initial panickedreaction.

The story itself was decently well paced. The wholememory lapse lead me to be a little confused at the beginning – but it allflowed well from there. There was a constant quest to figure out what hadactually happened in that gap in Sam’s memories – as well as trying to fend offattack from the Santiago family, as well as exploring her relationship withCaleb and what she actually wants to do with that and further meeting Angie andgetting on with life. We have a lot happening there but it’s all balanced – Ilike the way that no one event completely consumes Sam’s life, that she can’tput everything on hold and focus on one element. In fact, better than that, Samrefuses to put everything on hold and focus on one element. She has otherthings to do, other worries, other concerns.

I love Sam and Caleb’s relationship because Sam is sosensible about it. She doesn’t let emotions or hormones overwhelm her commonsense. She finds Caleb extremely attractive (more so with their Cambionsfighting to get closer) but doesn’t let that overrule all logic. There’s awonderful line where she’s trying to lecture Caleb on him feeding too much andputting them all at risk and he has a tangent about how he hurts everyone andwoe is him to which she responds:

I applauded. I applauded my tablet and I’m not evenashamed to admit it.

One defining moment for me in the romance is when Samfinally said “I love you” to Caleb. It wasn’t after they had hawt sex. Itwasn’t after drooling over his body. It wasn’t after lots of mushy declarationsof love. It was because he got her a present that wasn’t only thoughtful andloving, but supported her career aspirations and dreams. She loved him in themoment because she realised he supported her and believed in her ambition. Andhow excellent is that?

The depiction of women is similarly made excellent bySam’s awesomeness, her determination, her agency, her stubbornness, her refusalto be sheltered or protected and generally her taking the reigns and leadingher story – and being backed by her mother (another strong determinedcharacter) and Angie who is well and truly awesome, both strong enough tounleash epic death threats and wise enough to recognise them as unhelpful. Wedo have a moment with Sam and Olivia striking sparks, but it fades and is, toan extent, based on very reasonable resentment; after all Olivia was Nadine’ssister – having Nadine dead and her spirit now residing in Sam is going to be abitter pill to swallow. Sam is mature enough and sensible enough to recognisethat.

The only downside there is the idea that Cambions arehated by members of their own gender just as they are irresistible to theopposite gender. This seemed to arise only when Sam became a Cambion - we still don’t see Caleb (or any maleCambion) having anything like the same experience.

The protagonist of this book is a Black woman and she iswritten awesomely. Being Black is a part of her identity and culture –including her family. It’s something that is always part of the characterwithout ever her having to sit down and have an “oh by the way, I’m Black!”speech – she’s a fully authentic character; not for woo-woo, not a briefdescription in the beginning with no other markers. It’s an excellentdepiction, it adds to her already excellent characterisation and it’s just sodepressingly rare to have such an awesomely well rounded, perfectly depictedWOC as the protagonist in a story.

Unfortunately there are no GBLT characters in this book –or, indeed, the whole trilogy, despite a really huge cast of characters. Worse,the whole concept of the Cambions is gender essentialist and extremelyheteronormative; we even have a scene in this book where it is implied that aCambion can become damaged or ill by feeding off sexual energy of the samegender – considering the prevalent homophobic meme of gay people as mentallyill, sick and/or diseased this whole concept is beyond problematic. But we doget our first reference to GBLT people – a swanky hotel has an openly gayconcierge. Apparently. How Sam knows he is openly gay or how this relates tothe hotel’s swankiness remains a deep mystery (unless I inject some reality andassume the author is relying on a lot of gross stereotyping). Really if you’re going to erase then go thewhole hog - sprinkling in this nasty homophobia is just rubbing salt in the wounds.

At the end, this trilogy did an excellent job of takingso many of the tropes we see so often in paranormal YA, and subvert them. Or,even better, not subvert them but do them right – the characters made themwork. And they made them work because the characters are solid, very real andincredibly well written and drive an excellent, tightly written, very focusedstory