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I have taken my sweet time to get to the Royal Cleaner series, but I am kinda glad that I did. The Royal Cleaner series should definitely be read after the Almosts and somewhere around the last few books of the Freya Snow series. I love how Mawson’s books always interact with each other if they are in the same universe, but it is definitely a blessing and a curse if you are trying to avoid major spoilers.
Caroline is a Demon Royal who runs the Royal Cleaners. She is determined to keep humanity safe from the mischievous Demons and their king who seems to want humans to know about magic again. The last time that humans knew about magic, it resulted in a war, and a magical woman having to reverse time to save the world. Caroline was there, and she doesn’t want that to happen ever again.
The police have started to get unknowingly involved in the Demon cases, and Caroline knows she will have to take over the cases to save them. One detective in particular, Mina, doesn’t want to give up her case to some strange, cold woman. Caroline ends up being forced to work with her, and the last thing she needs is to fall for her on the job.
I think that this series is going to take the place of the Aspects for me while I wait for Hate and Love to get it together. I absolutely fell in love with both Caroline and Mina in this story. Caroline has been through a lot, and she doesn’t want others to get close to her. It seems to her that every person she gets close to either dies or isn’t close to her anymore. Mina is a divorcee with a child who doesn’t really give herself time to get close to anyone. Even as they are drawn together, Caroline instinctively pushes away. Humans can’t know about magic, and Mina’s entire family could be targeted by the Demons. But just like she wasn’t pushed off of her case easily, Mina won’t allow Caroline to slip away easily either.
The plot of this book moves quickly, as most LC Mawson books do, but I felt even more immersed than I usually do with her books. I also loved the character development. Caroline hasn’t trusted anyone for years, but Mina will not allow her to do this mission on her own. She has to get past her usual inability to be social, and truly work with a partner for the first time. ever.
The worldbuilding of Snowverse was also incredible. I hadn’t seen too much of Demon politics and people before, simply because the Freya Snow series didn’t focus on it. I hope that if we ever get more books from Damon’s POV, we will be able to see more of this. I wanted to learn more about Caroline’s past, where she was fully immersed in Demon culture. I didn’t get to see that much of it in this book, but I saw even more in the prequel.
I would recommend this series to anyone looking for a new f/f fantasy-romance novel with very diverse characters and an addictive storyline.
I received an advance copy of this book and this is my voluntary review.
Overall Rating: 6 out of 5 stars
