I honestly was on the fence about picking up Lovely Violent Things by Trisha Wolfe after finishing the first in the series. Yes, the first one ended in a cliffhanger that really intrigued me and wanted me to keep reading, but it wasn’t engaging enough to push it as a priority. Alas, a coworker pushed me into continuing the series since she wanted to know what happened next. I’m glad I gave in because this second installment in the Hollow’s Row series gave me everything the first book lacked!
Things are still a little weird in book two. There’s still that mystical metaphysical aspect that doesn’t really add anything to the book or story but simply exists. I wasn’t caught off-guard about it as I was in book one. It did, also, seem to take more of a backseat so that everything I was missing in book one, the romance, the crime, came roaring through. There’s more than just weird random conversations between Kallum and Halen. Things feel deeper between the two and we can see that Kallum cares for her, is worried for Halen. There’s heart to the story and higher stakes.
There is greater attention paid to the crime as well. Halen actually tries to investigate what happened to the missing townsfolk instead of simply going with the flow and trying to blame it all on her sociopath. Now, the ending once we learn what happened to the townsfolk, I didn’t care for simply because I didn’t understand what happened. It teetered back to just being weird. But before that, it was so good trying to piece together everything Halen finds.
Lovely Violent Things by Trisha Wolfe is a vast improvement over the first book in the series. The spice remains hot but now we get some good romance and an actual crime to investigate and uncover. There’s betrayal, violence, and of course, another cliffhanger. If you had the same reservations I did with book one, I think you’ll enjoy this second one much more. I definitely suggest giving it a shot.
