Review posted at The Armchair Reader.

2.5 stars

Misha has had a tough life. Sold by his family in Russia as a "bride" to an American man who then used him and pass him around to his friends, Misha was thrown to the streets when he wore out his welcome. He's now a hustler, very accustomed to working the streets and the seedier part of the sex industry. His one good thing is his friend Peter, another hustler, and the man he comes home to at night to share his day on a dirty bare mattress, squatting in a hollowed out building along with the bears who live below and frequently make them pay "toll" for things such as a shower or the bathroom.

It is his birthday, Halloween, and his work at the diner is backbreaking. No one really does anything around the place but him, and he's run off his feet by the customers and the freaks dressed up for the holiday that like to "handle the goods" and harass him as he tries to do his job. Things start to look up, however, when a handsome and polite man whose face is roughly scarred stays at the diner to help him with his work bussing tables. But, Misha can't find anything about the man who shows up again to help the next day, other than a few random strangers (who are dressed very strangely), stopping him in the street to tell him that the man will be bad for him and to avoid him. Life continues as normal until Peter starts acting strangely and Misha starts getting ready to meet the trick that Peter set up for him, only to find strange gifts awaiting him at home which make no sense at all. Could some weird kind of role-play fantasy be required for this evening? Or is something even stranger going on?

I had some difficulty with this story and I never really felt like I got into it. The way the story is told is by Misha's point of view, and since he knows nothing about what is really happening, we don't either. Of course, some things are obvious, like the paranormal aspect of the story, but the how and why isn't revealed until the very end of the story. In that case, it was hard for me to see this as a romance, especially since we don't get to know the scarred man very well. Secondly, much of my confusion lasted after I had finished the story. I didn't really understand the paranormal world that they inhabited. Parallel worlds? I'm still not sure. And even at the end, I still wasn't sure what had happened that precipitated the story and set it in motion, as well as who some of the charters were. For me to believe in the HEA, I felt like I needed to understand those things.

So, unfortunately, I couldn't really get behind this story. While I liked the idea, I felt like a lot of time was devoted to showing Misha in his life before the fated events occur, leaving me a little confused and wishing things were explained a little better, or at least organized differently. Of course, that's my opinion and others might feel differently. For the most part, I really like this author's work, so I'll continue to keep reading what she writes :)