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Verdict: A 172-page W/W/W monster romance with unusually careful consent work and top-band spice, sitting at the point where readers say the series’ plot has started to thin out.
Best for: Readers who want a polyamorous monster romance where kink is negotiated rather than assumed, who are already reading Warts & Claws, and who are here for the spice rather than the story.
Heat level: ★★★★★ (5/5 — no romance.io entry; derived from reader spice ratings, which land at 5)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ (3.4/5 — a 3.69 Goodreads average with plot decline named repeatedly by readers of the series)
Tropes: Monster romance, polyamory, W/W/W throuple, omegaverse, workplace matchmaking, consent-forward kink, insta-lust, novella length, series world, HEA.
Not So Yours Truly is book four of Clio Evans’s Warts & Claws Inc. series, a self-published sapphic monster romance novella published in December 2022, and the entry where the series steps from couples into a three-woman relationship.
It holds a 3.69 average across 1,720 Goodreads ratings and 204 written reviews. That is a large audience for a 172-page novella, and it is also the lowest Goodreads average of any Clio Evans title on our Kindle Unlimited list. The reviews explain why with unusual precision, and they mostly agree with each other. Both halves of that split are worth understanding before you start.
What Is Not So Yours Truly About?
Warts & Claws Inc. is a workplace framing device for monster romance — a company whose business is arranging things for monsters, which gives each book a reason to introduce a new pairing without inventing a new world. It is the same structural trick as Evans’s Creature Cafe books and it does the same job: get two, or in this case three, people into a room quickly and spend the remaining pages on what happens there.
What makes this instalment different is the configuration. This is FFF rather than FF — three women rather than a couple — and for a number of readers it was their first polyamorous romance of any kind. That matters to how the book is received: some of the enthusiasm in the reviews is enthusiasm about the structure itself rather than about this particular execution of it.
What Makes This Sapphic Monster Romance Work
- Consent is built in, not bolted on: A reader who criticises the plot still says the series embraces all types of kinks and focuses on consent. In monster romance that is a genuine differentiator.
- The throuple is the point: Readers describe this as their first FFF and are glad it was this one. The three-way structure is handled as a relationship rather than a novelty.
- Spice at the top of the scale: Reviewers who rate spice separately put it at 5, and nobody argues the book undersells it.
- 172 pages: Short enough to read in an evening, which suits a book that is mostly one extended situation.
- Series continuity: Readers who have followed Warts & Claws from book one report the world holding together across instalments even when individual plots do not.
Book Synopsis
Warts & Claws Inc. exists because monsters have needs and somebody has to organise them. It is a company, it has staff, and the staff are as tangled in the business as the clients are — which is how a workplace comedy premise ends up producing a series of increasingly explicit romances rather than a sitcom.
This instalment moves the series from pairs to three. Where the earlier books introduced a client and a match, this one puts three women in a relationship that has to work as a triangle rather than as a couple with an addition, and it does it inside 172 pages. That compression is deliberate: Evans writes novellas, and the Warts & Claws books are designed to be finished in a sitting.
The mechanics of the world — who the monsters are, what the company actually does, why any of these people are in each other’s way — are assumed rather than explained, because by book four the audience is expected to know. What the book spends its pages on instead is the negotiation: what each of the three wants, what they are willing to ask for, and how a relationship with three people in it decides anything. The question is not whether it will work. It is what shape it takes.
My Review
The thing this series does that deserves more credit than it gets is consent. Monster romance operates in a space where the fantasy is frequently about being overwhelmed, and a lot of books in the subgenre handle that by simply not engaging with the question. Evans engages with it constantly — and the evidence is that the reader who says so is a reader who is otherwise criticising the book. When someone gives you three stars and still volunteers that the series embraces all types of kinks and focuses on consent, that is the most reliable kind of praise available.
The second thing worth naming is the throuple. Polyamorous romance is structurally harder than it looks: three people means three relationships plus a group dynamic, and the usual failure mode is one character functioning as an accessory. Several readers here describe this as their first FFF and stayed happy with it, which suggests the balance holds well enough for newcomers to the structure.
The dominant criticism is that the series is running out of plot, and it is stated bluntly. One reviewer writes that Warts & Claws is rapidly declining in plot, adding that in erotica this is not fatal but that when the kinks in a given book do not align with a reader’s taste, the plot is all that is left. Another, more sympathetically, calls it good spice with fuzzy points in plot, and identifies a specific gap: very little information about the relationship between two of the three women. That is the real problem with a 172-page throuple — there is not room to develop three connections, so one of them gets short measure.
There is also a dialogue complaint worth passing on because it caused at least one DNF. A reader who normally enjoys insta-lust and insta-love could not get past the way the characters talk to each other. Another simply found the whole thing cringy. These are taste judgements rather than craft failures, but they are the second most common reason people put this one down.
My honest note: The most thoughtful book about consent on our monster romance list, and one of the thinnest in plot. If you are reading Warts & Claws for the spice and the ethics of it, this delivers. If you need a story underneath, book four is where the series stops providing one.
| Element | In Not So Yours Truly |
|---|---|
| Central relationship | Three women rather than two — a W/W/W throuple formed inside the Warts & Claws world |
| Core tropes | Monster romance, polyamory, omegaverse, workplace matchmaking, consent-forward kink, insta-lust |
| Setting | Warts & Claws Inc. — a company whose business is arranging things for monsters |
| Heat level | 5/5 — no romance.io entry; reader spice ratings land at 5 |
| Series | Warts & Claws Inc. book 4 — assumes earlier reading; each book resolves its own relationship |
| Content notes | Explicit sexual content throughout, polyamory, omegaverse dynamics, non-human anatomy, kink negotiation |
How Spicy Is Not So Yours Truly?
A 5/5, though the sourcing here is different from most of our reviews. romance.io has no entry for this title, which is worth saying rather than inventing a band — the absence tells you the book is not being catalogued as mainstream adult romance at all. What we have instead is reader scoring, and reviewers who rate spice separately put it at 5 out of 5 without dissent. At 172 pages with three participants, the ratio of explicit content to everything else is very high.
The thing worth flagging is not intensity but framing. This is omegaverse-adjacent monster romance with negotiated kink, and the negotiation is on the page — which some readers find genuinely refreshing and others find slows the scenes down. No reviewer flags anything beyond that. For the same author at couple rather than throuple scale, Little Taste of Need is the comparison, and Green-Eyed Monster runs comparable intensity with a full novel around it.
Who Should Read This Book?
You’ll likely love it if: you want a polyamorous sapphic romance where consent is handled explicitly, you are already reading Warts & Claws, you read monster romance for the kink range, and you want it finished in an evening.
You may want to skip it if: you need a plot, you are starting the series here, you find negotiated kink slows a scene down, or dialogue that leans playful and crude puts you off.
In short: the most ethically careful book on our monster romance list, and the one with the least story in it.
What Readers Are Actually Saying (August 2026)
Like the rest of Clio Evans’s catalogue, this has no trade coverage and no Reddit presence, and a very large rating count for its length: 1,720 Goodreads ratings on a 172-page novella. The audience is a series audience — people working through Warts & Claws in order — supplemented by readers arriving from monster romance lists. An audiobook edition exists, running 5 hours 3 minutes with Michelle Price and Lexi Evans narrating, which is a genuine two-narrator production and a sign the series is being invested in rather than wound down. Notably, the reviews here are in more than one language; this series has readers outside the anglophone monster-romance circuit, which is unusual at this scale.
Why readers love it (according to the discourse): Consent, first, and it is the most credible finding in the whole review section because it comes from critics rather than fans — a three-star reviewer volunteers that the series embraces all types of kinks and focuses on consent. Second, the throuple. Several readers describe this as their first FFF and are glad they started here, which suggests the three-way dynamic is written as a relationship rather than as a stunt. Third, spice, rated at the top of readers’ own scales. There is a minority position worth naming: at least one long-term reader of the series says this instalment is better than books two and three, which cuts directly against the decline narrative that dominates elsewhere.
What readers argue about and complain about: Plot, above everything, and specifically plot decline across the series. The bluntest version says Warts & Claws is rapidly declining in plot, with the observation that in erotica this is survivable only while the kinks land — when they do not, there is nothing else to hold onto. A gentler version calls it good spice with fuzzy points in plot and identifies the concrete gap: very little information about the relationship between two of the three leads, which is what happens when you give a throuple 172 pages. Second, dialogue, which caused at least one outright DNF from a reader who normally likes insta-lust but could not accept how these characters speak to each other. Third, tone — one reviewer simply found it cringy, which is not analysis but is a real reaction that recurs. The genuine split is between readers treating this as erotica with a world attached and readers expecting a romance novel. The first group is satisfied; the second is not.
The series question everyone should ask first: This is book four and it assumes you have read the others — one reviewer opens by telling newcomers to go back and start at the beginning, which is a fair instruction. Each book resolves its own relationship, so there is no cliffhanger risk, but the world, the company and the running cast are all taken as read. The more useful question is where the series is going: the plot criticism is not about this book in isolation, it is about a trajectory, and readers arriving at book four should expect spice-forward novellas rather than stories. If that is what you want, the whole series is on Kindle Unlimited and costs nothing but borrow slots.
Prefer audio? Listen to Not So Yours Truly on Libro.fm — the audiobook shop that supports independent bookstores.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Not So Yours Truly a throuple romance?
Yes. It is W/W/W — three women rather than a couple — and it is the point at which the Warts & Claws series moves from pairs into polyamory. Several readers describe it as their first FFF romance.
How spicy is Not So Yours Truly?
A 5/5 by reader scoring. romance.io has no entry for it, which is itself informative, but reviewers who rate spice separately put it at the top of their scales without dissent.
Can I start the Warts & Claws series at this book?
Not really. It is book four and assumes you know the company, the world and the recurring cast. One reviewer opens by telling newcomers to go back and start at the beginning.
Does Not So Yours Truly have a plot?
Thinly. The most repeated criticism is that the series is declining in plot by this point, and one reader notes there is very little information about the relationship between two of the three leads. It reads as spice-forward erotica with a world attached.
Is there an audiobook of Not So Yours Truly?
Yes. It runs 5 hours 3 minutes, narrated by Michelle Price and Lexi Evans, and it is stocked on Libro.fm.
Is Not So Yours Truly on Kindle Unlimited?
Yes, as is the rest of the Warts & Claws series. It carried the Kindle Unlimited badge on its Amazon listing when we checked in August 2026, but availability changes without notice.
If You Loved Not So Yours Truly, Read These Next
Three land closest. Little Taste of Need is the same author at couple scale and the better entry point to her work. Blood Marks by Ruby Scott is where to go if the polyamory is what appealed but you want a full-length novel with a plot around it. And Green-Eyed Monster by Rawnie Sabor runs comparable kink intensity across 573 pages, which is the direct answer to the thinness problem. For more in the same band, browse our sapphic romantasy on Kindle Unlimited guide or the full run of book reviews.
The Bottom Line
Not So Yours Truly does two things better than most of the monster romance shelf: it treats consent as part of the erotics rather than an obstacle to them, and it writes a three-woman relationship as a relationship rather than a novelty. Against that: 172 pages is not enough room for three connections, one of the three pairings goes visibly under-served, and this is the point in the series where readers start saying the plot has thinned to nothing. Worth borrowing if you are already in the series and reading it for what it is. Check Not So Yours Truly on Amazon →
The Eikna Overall Ranking
On the Eikna scale, Not So Yours Truly ranks as a consent-forward sapphic monster novella — ethically careful and structurally ambitious for its length, held back by a plot the series has stopped supplying, and best approached as book four of a spice-first serial.
The Evidence Scorecard
Overall ★★★☆☆ 3.4/5
- ✓ 3.69 average across 1,720 Goodreads ratings
- ✓ Consent handling praised by critical reviewers
- ✓ Plot decline named repeatedly by series readers
Romance ★★★★☆ 3.5/5
- ✓ Throuple written as a relationship, not a stunt
- ✓ First FFF for several readers, and it held
- ✓ Kink negotiated openly between all three
- ✓ One of the three pairings under-developed
Characters ★★★☆☆ 3.1/5
- ✓ Series cast carries recognisability from book one
- ✓ Each of the three has a distinct want
- ✓ 172 pages leaves no room for three arcs
- ✓ Dialogue caused at least one outright DNF
Writing ★★★☆☆ 3.3/5
- ✓ Efficient at getting three people into a situation
- ✓ Consent written into the scenes, not around them
- ✓ Called cringy by more than one reviewer
- ✓ Dialogue is the second most common complaint
Emotional Impact ★★★☆☆ 3.1/5
- ✓ Negotiation gives the intimacy real texture
- ✓ Series readers stay invested across books
- ✓ Little revealed about two of the three together
- ✓ Nothing at stake beyond the relationship
Heat Level ★★★★★ 5/5
- ✓ Reader spice ratings land at 5 without dissent
- ✓ Very high content ratio across 172 pages
- ✓ Full kink range with consent foregrounded
- ✓ No romance.io entry to corroborate the band
Ending ★★★★☆ 3.6/5
- ✓ Resolves its own relationship inside the book
- ✓ No cliffhanger despite being book four
- ✓ Series continues with new pairings
- ✓ Resolution arrives quickly by necessity
Re-read Value ★★★☆☆ 3.3/5
- ✓ 5h3m dual-narrator audio offers a second format
- ✓ One evening makes a return trip cheap
- ✓ Kindle Unlimited makes re-borrowing free
- ✓ Thin plot leaves little to rediscover
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