Avidian (Demon & the Savior

You think you've won? You haven't even seen the board yet.

Available at Amazon.com

Avidian
Ashley R. Odonovan
Demon & the Savior, book one
Kindle Edition, 358 pages
Published March 25, 2025
ASIN B0DBM2XLYL4
Free Read from Amazon

If Shatter Me and Divergent had a morally gray baby raised by ghosts—it would be Avidian.

This is a spicy, binge-worthy romantasy set in a dystopian world where she’s forced to solve a murder using her rare ability to see the dead—and the man offering her a way out might be hiding the most dangerous secret of all.

I can see the dead. They tell me their secrets. But this time, their secrets might get me killed.

My name is Kat Sinclair, and the Volkov family owns me. People like me, born with special abilities, are called Avids. But my gift doesn’t spare me from the demands of Marco Volkov, the ruthless family patriarch who keeps me in line with the ever-present threat of violence.

When a grisly double murder involving a family nephew and a cook shakes the household, I’m forced to uncover the truth. The whispers of the dead reveal more than I bargained for, unearthing secrets that could destroy the Volkovs—and me.

But I met a charming stranger who might be able to help. Except he doesn’t know about my gift, my scars, or the dark past I can’t escape. But in his eyes, I see something I thought I’d lost long ago—hope.

If I want to escape, I’ll have to play along. But this murder might be hiding something even more dangerous. If I’m not careful, I’ll be the next one the dead are whispering about.

We're going to just dive right into this one...

Malachi is annoying. A complete nuisance. His personality is like that of a trickster god but without any redeeming charm to his words.

Until Kat decides that her best plan to secure information is to play the whore route and Malachi has to start slicing throats to get her out of it. Yes. Do that. Talk less, Malachi. More blade action.

Meanwhile, Kat... talk more. Ask more questions. What does he mean he has people. Who are these people? Who's the guy with the slanting head?

Eventually the unasked questions get answered and my, what a shift. We have an entire undercover, underground, operation making moves. The Sindicate, whose base is in a silo miles deep into the earth with layers of scientists, combatants, and more gearing up to overthrow the ruling families.

And damn, I found myself longing for new episodes of Silo on AppleTV.

Anyway, Malachi's mouth is finally providing useful intel and the story begins to pick up about midway. Before that, it was basically a murder mystery wherein Kat is tasked with identifying the unsub in the murder of her master's nephew. Despite the fact that she can talk to the dead, the nephew is an arse and totally uninterested in communicating anything helpful to the situation.

He's not dead.

In one ear and out the other. I can't even begin to try to understand why the character would ignore something like this. Not even a second thought. Not a fraction of a fraction of a second thought. But hey, makes for a great time to go on a winter wonderland date and ride the ferris wheel. What is happening?! Who's not dead? Because the only person that's not suppose to be alive and yet, we've seen no evidence of their death is...

I have never wanted to slap some sense into a character so hard before. Kat has the attention span of a fruit fly. Good gods, woman, when someone hands you the journal of a murder victim, you don't just tuck it into your waist band and you sure af don't start at the beginning when you finally crack it open!

Without it, I would have come to the same conclusion, but it did speed up the process.

Child! You didn't solve a damn thing. They didn't even need you had they just read the journal in the first place. This is some bs right here.

3 out 5 stars.

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