Sweet Peril

Title: Sweet Peril (Sweet #2)
Author: Wendy Higgins
Genre: YA
Rating: 5/5
Cover: 8/10

I literally pounced on Sweet Peril when it showed up on my doorstep today (yes today. And yes, it's 370 pages long. Don't judge me, please) because the end of Sweet Evil was just plain mean. I wasn't even sure what I wanted to do with Kai: throttle him, or kiss the living daylights out of him.
For those of you who haven't read Sweet Evil, here's what you need to know: young, sweet, innocent maid (in the old sense of the word, please) Anna, meets dark, dangerous boy, Kai. She finds out she's the daughter of a demon, and so is he. Kai is the son of the demon of lust. Need I say anymore? Stuff happens, it's a bit Romeo & Juliet-like, but without the deaths at the end. You should read it.

The good (or bad, because I missed him so much) thing was that he didn't show up till about halfway through the book, so by then, I was just so happy to see him again, I forgot all about wanting to kill him.
In all seriousness, though. What I really liked about Sweet Peril is that Anna and Zania are clearly shown as strong female leads. And yes, in Zania's case - and sometimes in Anna's, too - that means that they kick ass. But mostly, they are shown to be perfectly able to save themselves. They are damsels. They are frequently in distress. They can handle it.
Yes, the boys do get to swoop in every now and then and play the knights in shining armour to them, but Anna doesn't spend half the book wishing Kai was there to help her get out of the problems she gets herself into. Yes, she wants him there, but because she loves him, not because she wants him to save her. I also particularly enjoyed Blake calling Kai 'her man' instead of her always being 'his girl'. It was a refreshing change.
And even though the book starts out quite tame, boy oh boy, by the time we hit the halfway mark, the action has escalated so much, it's amazing. It skips a few months, which I thought would bother me, but really didn't, and didn't disrupt the narrative in any way, so don't get too freaked out about that. And a few chapters after the halfway mark, the heat gets turned on to a sizzle. After so long between books, and without Kaidan in this book for so long, I'd forgotten how those two got when they were around each other. All I can say is, hot damn baby.

Fans of Sweet Evil, definitely read. Kai doesn't disappoint (well... maybe a bit. At first. But he makes up for it later on, promise!). And if you're looking for an easy summer read, definitely pick this up. As mentioned previously, I finished it in one sitting, which I hand't been able to do in quite a while. It was wonderful to start doing it again with Anna and Kai and the rest of the gang.

Also, can I just say that I think it's fabulous that the winner of the cover contest was called Anna? That was so funny to read! :D