Well, this was disappointing. The Devil She Knows should have been sexy and spooky, a fun romp between a human and the demon who’s dedicated to fulfilling her wishes. Instead, the vast majority of the book focuses on one female main character trying to win back her ex-girlfriend. Reader, If I make it to the halfway point and the main character is still obsessed with an ex, I’m not going to give it a good grade, no matter how much fun the rest of the book is.

Samantha Cooper thought she had her life figured out, but then her girlfriend, Hannah, turns down her proposal. Sam now needs a new place to live. Her day does not improve when she meets a young woman named Daphne in the elevator who claims she’s a demon.

Daphne says she can fulfill all of Sam’s desires for a price. Six wishes in trade for Sam’s soul sounds like an easy bargain – especially when it gets her her dream career, lands her Hannah, and seems to make everything perfect and shiny. But both Sam and Daphne have hidden agendas – Daphne is planning on making Sam the last soul she needs to steal so she can get out of her own bargain with the devil, while Sam plans on avoiding using all but one of her wishes. Naturally, she wants Hannah back. But is Hannah who Sam really wants?

If I’m past the halfway point and the main character is desperately clinging to her dream of getting her horrible ex back instead of macking on the cute demon that’s fallen into her lap, we’re gonna have a problem. The Devil She Knows does just that, which in turn makes Sam look like an idiot for still wanting Hannah. By the time she finally starts exploring Daphne as a romantic option, it is too late in the book.

And that’s a shame, because Daphne is a pink-coated prize who deserves way better than this. The romance deserves way better than this! Alas, we get little of them together – certainly not enough page time to convince us they’re soulmates, though Bellefleur struggles mightily to get us to care. There should be so much more yearning and layering. But the romance between Daphne and Sam only happens during the last 30 percent of the book; a terrible precedent that doesn’t give their story time to grow at all.

So many parts of the book are interesting, and could have worked, which is why I’m sorry I had to grade this one so low. But this is supposed to be a love story and The Devil She Knows spends way too much time concentrating on the wrong lovers.