I've had this book a long while and unfortunately I am still struggling to engage with the story. This one isn't for me but the cover art is great! DNF

Take secret societies, a haunted hero, a romance, Baba Yaga, vampires, Ref Faires, time travel, and classical music, mix well and you would have J. W. Zarek's The Devil Pulls the Strings. Boone Daniels, a Ren Faire knight and sometime musician is in New York as a favor for a friend when he is pulled into a web of revenge spanning several hundred years. All he has to do is complete several quests without getting killed and without knowing all the players. The stakes? Just the fate of New York city and the lives of all he holds dear. Will he be able to overcome treachery and mayhem from foes and friends alike? Read the book and find out!

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher/author for providing me with an e-copy in exchange for my honest review.

This book was exactly what I wanted it to be! I loved it. I will make sure to check out other books by this author. When I requested this I was just intrigued by the concept of it and I loved how it turned out. This story had a great plot and if you have read this and enjoyed it, This was so much. It was such a great story. I would say give this one a try. I will continue to follow this author. Way to go to this author for not letting me down.

There were some really enjoyable points with this book and some points that made this book less enjoyable. I liked the character development and the storyline was intriguing with a good mix of good versus evil, fantasy and magical elements and the paranormal/supernatural. However, I think that one of the things that makes for a good fantasy read is the worldbuilding, if the worldbuilding is good it can really elevate a book even if the sotry isnt great, I also wasnt a big fan of the narrative/writing it left me confused at times and having to flip back to previous pages. I really wanted to like this book more than I did but sadly it just feel slightly flat and left me underwhlemed.

I was excited by the cover and premise of this story, but the plot and characters were too disjointed for me to properly keep up and understand what was really going on. I appreciate a lot of worldbuilding, and this book didn't have that, and for those reasons, it fell a bit flat for me.

If you like magic, fantasy, adventure, music, renascence fairs, or time travel check out this book! I was blown away by how much I enjoyed this. What a crazy adventure! I have never read anything like it. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 4.5/5

DNF at 50%. Oh boy I tried so hard with this one. Boone is a fine character and the story was really interesting, but the writing jumped around so much that it was unreadable. It was super hard to follow without thinking really hard. There was a lot of potential, but it was obscured by the fragmentation of the writing. eARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Posted on Goodreads.