There is no real sign of any kind of harem formation after the second book and no sex either. It is obvious that the story will get there eventually but it's very slow.
I enjoyed both books in general but the entire story appears to be low-effort.
My first problem is that the plot is very obviously being steered by plot conveniences left and right which makes it really hard to care about outcomes of tense situations for me.
My second one is the MC. RH genre flaws take over way too much which ends up contradicting her independent self-reliant personality badly. The lusting after every guy in particular just got on my nerves. I get it, it will probably turn out the entire harem was somehow meant for her, and because she eventually gets them all it's not really an issue in the end but nobody has any idea about that at the time.
This is not a case of a male group expecting to share a woman at all which makes it very off-putting how she ends up with drenched panties as soon as any guy even looks at her wrong.
This leads to behavior that is entirely out of character constantly. Well, maybe it will turn out she is part succubus in the third book and this is just her nature peeking through but I doubt it.
This is a common issue in the RH genre but I don't think I have seen a case as bad as this one yet.

While all the potential RH members are somewhat interesting and have unique personalities and fleshed out backstories, I don't see the MC actually fitting with any of them. The levels of lust go through the roof with all of them but I don't see any actual connection beyond her savior complex to anyone. At this point, I honestly just wish she would just get it over with and pick and fuck one already. Even entirely off-screen would be fine. It's just tedious at this point.

Another issue I have is that while stuff is happening all the time I never felt any kind of progress towards anything.
There is an endless number of story strands each of which is the most important at the time but we constantly switch between them like the story has ADHD or something.
Because of this, each individual story strand ends up moving incredibly slowly which made a lot of the story feel like hot air. Very few of these strands actually had a payoff, and the ones that had were all rather underwhelming so far.
The more I think about it the more it becomes clear to me how little actually happened throughout these two books. It's just endless back and forth around various topics for most of both books.
And a huge chunk of both books consists of lusting and even more so of endlessly circling inner monologue about that lusting. And another big chunk is circling around the topic of her protection both of which were already tedious after the first book and neither got any better in the second.

The nerd references felt forced and shallow and I've never heard someone who is actually into games or DnD crack incredibly lame jokes (or references) like that.

One last thing that annoyed me from the beginning, but I became numb to over time, was the constant act by everyone like the MC was saying smart things when she was just stating the obvious. The average IQ in this world is probably what would be considered room temperature in our world. (In °F because the joke doesn't work otherwise. Long live metric though.)

Despite a really bad cliff-hanger at the end of the second book, I don't really feel like there is anything interesting yet to come so I'll just drop the series here. I don't need to read a book for thoughts that turn in circles. My brain does that all on its own already.

Edit: After rifling through reviews about the third book it very much seems like my general criticisms about story pacing and the harem are on point and will continue to stall endlessly. ( )

wasn't expecting much, but the story and unusual plot pulled me in... i'm a sucker for independent women stepping up and taking charge, and this one surely does... surprise after surprise to the end.... ( )

Nice start to a new series.

I enjoyed getting to know Serafina and her new team. There are a lot of open threads out there that bred questions needing answers. I actually would like to know more about the foster brother too as there seems to be a lot in the background to that situation.

I liked some of the men more than others, but I can see where they all might fit in in the future.

I will defiantly read more.

* This book was provided free of charge from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. ( )