Wages of Sin IS KILLING MY SOUL

**NOTE: Spoilers ahead! I am summarizing the entirety of this book, and I'm doing it just for you. You'll thank me later.**

Things have taken a turn for the worse over here in Cliche Town. I made it three chapters, and I already need to purge before I am poisoned by my hatred for this book.

I fear I may have given our dear author more credit than she deserved. I assumed a book that revolves around a powerful witch would AT LEAST feature a strong female protagonist. Imagine my shock and dismay when I realized this character is WORSE THAN BELLA.

But seriously, guys.

I knew something was amiss when she needed help to kill one silly vampire. If I were a witch with double-witch powers, I would be like, "Step aside, vampire hunters. I'm gonna vaporize this m-fer. Won't take but a second." I mean, earlier, she turned him into a weasel on accident. Can't she just do that again, on purpose? And then step on his head?

So she's utterly helpless . . . for some reason the author hasn't bothered to explain.

She decides to use a spell to summon the good vampires (The Righteous) to her mansion. But they ARE still vampires and could be dangerous, so the clever girl uses her generous bosom to make them more receptive to her. I'll just let her tell you what she's wearing. She does it so well.

It was a Cyprian's dress, a creation for a high-class courtesan. Made of crimson silk, which happily matched the lining of my cloak, it clung to every one of my generous curves. Shockingly sleeveless and scandalously low-cut in a deeply plunging V, its skirt fell from the satin band below my breasts to hug my hips ever so slightly and swirl out in a tiny flare at the floor.

She explains that at night in the privacy of her room, she often puts on this dress, cakes on makeup from her secret stash, and admires herself in the mirror while pretending she's one of "those women." Yes, she said THOSE WOMEN. *bangs head repeatedly on keyboard*

So she's in her ballroom (everyone has one, no big deal), wearing this seductive dress, and she works this incredibly annoying spell (four pages of chanting!) to summon The Righteous from London.

Using Morrigan, Great Phantom Queen, Keeper of Death, she speaks telepathically to one of the good vampires (the sexy one, obvs), and he appears sexily in the doorway and waits there sexily while she explains to us how incredibly sexy he is. She describes your typical attractive man-person, but then she says he looks like a pirate. So he's a hot vampire pirate named Michael, The Devil's Archangel. There you go.

And this is where she just goes for it and becomes "woman with heaving breasts who needs strong man to save her."

He was not armed with so much as a dagger, but when his fingers clenched on the door frame and I heard the soft crack of the wood underneath, I realized that those beautiful, lethal hands were weapons in themselves. And even knowing that, all I could think of was what they would feel like on my skin, moving up my arm, drawing my hair aside, moving lower . . . 

Did you just throw up in your mouth a little?

What I REALLY wanted to do when I read this was punch Cin in the face. What I ACTUALLY did was fling the book at the wall and hang my head in sorrow for womankind.

After she's done telling us about his strong hands and high cheekbones, dreamy vampire pirate realizes she's a witch and lunges at her, and she uses her witch powers to lift him off the ground and pin him to the wall. My frustration knows no bounds! WHY can't she just do that with the BAD vampire?!

But, just in case you were thinking there's hope for her yet, while she has him lifted up against the wall, all she can think about is how badly she wants to touch his chest. I'M NOT JOKING. Then she lets him down and they start talking like a civilized witch and vampire should, but he can't stop staring at her "generous swell of breast." And she likes it because she HAS NO SELF-RESPECT.

I wanted to wrap myself up in him, to feel his arms around me, to feel safe again. My breath rushed out in a quivering sigh.

Just when you think they're gonna go at it right there on the ballroom floor, the other two good vampires show up (thank GOODNESS). We have Devlin, the Dark Lord, and Justine, The Devil's Justice . . . and they're attractive, of course. Devlin is a Gaston lookalike and has an "arrogant nose," whatever that is.

Justine is perfect and exotic and gets Cin's juices flowing, apparently.

There was something indefinable about her that made you imagine her naked in a bed, all that glorious hair tousled around her, her eyes sleepy and heavy-lidded from lovemaking.

This poor girl needs some action, like now. Oh, but Cin really wants us to know that Justine's breasts aren't as large as hers. This is important information for some reason.

I left them sitting in Cin's drawing room, drinking whiskey and discussing her problems (WHERE to begin?).

Whiskey sounds good right now.