Author: Willow Winters
Genre: Romance, Dark Romance
Format: Kindle (also comes in paperback and hardcover)
Kindle Unlimited: No
Series: Yes, Book 1 of 2
Price: $5.99 (Kindle)

Synopsis: {via Amazon}

There are two things I’ve always known:

Magic is real.

The Gods have no mercy for women like me.

I was born into power although what little I have is dying. Nonetheless, I’ve been protected all my life. There are myths and tales that say one day I will come to a fork in a long, long path. Either the light will take me or the dark. I never paid any mind to the whispers and warnings…

Until he crept into my window late at night.

Cloaked in darkness, silent as death. Every inch of me felt terror and yet I also felt something else. Something I’d never known.

He tasted like sin … and I loved it.

In a single moment, my entire world went dark and I was nothing more than a captive in the Underworld.

Nothing but his and suddenly all the lore brought a chill to my bones… even if he did light a fire in the most secret depths of me.

Prepare for a dark retelling of Hades and Persephone with spells and war and a love story that would change our world forevermore.

Review:

Wow, I'm not completely sure where to start with this one. I picked it up after seeing it advertised on my Facebook pretty much non-stop. I'm a sucker for good dark romance, so this book seemed like it fit my fancy. And, it might have done so a bit more if it was a modern retelling. Unfortunately, it's not and the book is so, soooooo slow. Everything happens so slowly with so much description that it's a little exhausting. I usually read a book in a day, maybe two, but this book took me three because the writing was so stiff that I couldn't stay interested.

Tropes:

🏺Greek Mythology

👑Hades & Persephone

🗡️Touch her and 💀

❤️‍🔥Slow burn

🖤Dark Romance

⛰️Cliffhanger

The Characters:

Hades is exactly as you would expect. Dark, broody, and hot. He's also a little bit cruel in a "it's for her own good" kind of way. Persephone is beautiful, curious, and self-absorbed, but also weak (not really her fault). There's not much more to say about either of them. 

The Plot:

This story is your standard Hades and Persephone retelling in most ways. It's set in ancient Greece, a small problem for me as you will see here in a minute. This book certainly has one thing going for it and that's the spice. This book's steamy and the sex scenes are hot. Otherwise, it's your standard Hades steals Persephone to the underworld and doesn't want to return her. Except in this case, she's facing a pretty serious betrayal that she doesn't know about because Hades never trusts her enough to tell her. This is a reoccurring theme throughout the story. He constantly tells her he can help her, but never actually does (maybe that's coming in book 2?). She falls in love with him in a sort of cringy captive falls for her captor kind of way, they even bond, and he still doesn't trust her to come back to him if he lets her go. He'd rather the whole damn universe be torn apart than, heaven forbid, trust her. 

The thing that bothered me more than anything was that at one point they celebrate Samhain. Samhain is a Gaelic holiday and wasn't celebrated in ancient Greece. Also, whenever she'd cast a spell she'd say "So Mote it Be" which is something modern wiccans use, but the origins for this phrase come from the Regius Manuscript, a Free Mason document dating to around 1390 AD . This is not something ancient Greeks would have said since ancient Greece dates from about 9000 BCE to 30 BCE.

I digress. Even though I found the writing a little bit stiff, the way Winters puts words together is beautiful. The story's pace is extremely slow. And... it ends on a cliffhanger with the next book expected next year.

The things I liked about this story include the mythology and the fact that she recognizes Hecate as a titan and not just a goddess. The mythology is almost spot on other than one place where she calls Hermes the god of war, which isn't accurate, but perhaps I misunderstood it? Otherwise, I always enjoy mythology and this was no exception. I also really liked some of the secondary characters such as Beatrice and Minox. Oh, and I liked that you saw a softer side of Hades with his dog, Cerberus. 

Rating: ❤❤❤ - Overall, this one was just okay. I might recommend it, if you enjoy Hades and Persephone retellings. Otherwise, skip this one. Or maybe just skip it until book 2 is out. 

Author: Navessa Allen
Genre: Dark Romance
Kindle Unlimited: No
Published: August 2024
Publisher: Zando--Slowburn
Series: Into Darkness #1

Synopsis: {via Amazon]

The viral TikTok stalker dark romance, burning with high heat, hilarious banter, and a love story like you’ve never seen before. Can you handle the ride?

I want someone with a soul as black as night. Someone who would burn the world down for me and not lose a single minute of sleep over it.

Trauma nurse Aly Cappellucci doesn’t need any more kinks. She likes the one she’s landed on just fine. To her, nothing could top the masked men she follows online. Unless one of those men was shirtless, heavily tattooed, and waiting for her in her bedroom. She dreams about being hunted by one in particular, of him chasing her down and doing deliciously dark things to her willing body. She never could have guessed that by sending one drunken text, those dreams would become her new reality.

I want things most people don’t, craving darkness and depravity instead of light and love.

Josh Hammond has spent his life avoiding the limelight, but his online persona is another story. At night, he posts masked thirst traps for his millions of fans to drool over, but one follower has caught his eye: Aly. After reading a comment begging him to break into her house wearing a mask, he decides to take her up on her offer.

Together, Aly and Josh live out their darkest fantasies, unaware that Aly has captured the attention of someone else. Someone with far more sinister intentions than a little light stalking. As Josh turns from predator to protector and the stakes heighten, he must ask himself how far he’s willing to go for the woman he’s obsessed with.

Lights Out is a fast-paced dark romance with a morally gray male lead. Some themes and scenes may be disturbing to readers. Please check the TWs at the beginning of the book.

Review: 

*May include spoilers*

I really enjoyed this book. With that said, I'm not sure what I expected from the book. It got such good reviews all around, I think I expected something shocking or spectacular. While it was a good book, I wouldn't call it spectacular and perhaps that's on me because my hopes were way up after all the booktok reviewers said things like: "I wasn't prepared." The plot includes mask kink, stalking, accidental murder, and the mob. There's a lot going on here and there are places where it's slow or drags. Still, I would recommend it, if for no other reason than that I loved Josh. He's as close to being everything as any book boyfriend I've had in a long time. 

The Characters: 

Josh and Aly both come complete with background quirks that make them interesting characters. Josh has a deep, dark family secret while Aly carries guilt over something that happened in her past. They have baggage, like everyone else, but where they diverge from normalcy is in their actions. Both of them have dark thoughts and both of them are willing to act on those dark thoughts. They both accept things most people wouldn't, like stalking/being stalked. They share some unusual kinks and come together to commit an accidental crime, which they're both a little bit disturbed by but seem to get over it pretty quickly. 

Josh, the MMC, is quirky. He's warm when he needs to be and dark when it's called for. Josh is a hacker with a compulsive need to watch those he cares about and a pretty strange social media pass time. Even though he stalks Aly, he doesn't mean her any harm, which is something he seems to have trouble differentiating. Stalking is usually bad behavior, but inside this book's confines, Josh's stalking Aly isn't so much bad behavior as it is simply compulsive behavior.

Aly, the FMC, is a nurse with a compulsive need to help everyone. Unlike Josh, she's not so much quirky as she is unphased by a lot of the darker things happening in this book. She learns she's being stalked and while she has a momentary freak out, she's not phased by being stalked. They commit an accidental crime and Aly is nearly unmoved by the situation. 

Together, they're a solidly matched pair.

The Plot:

Aly and Josh meet online, through their shared social media kink, and soon come together to wreak a little unintended havoc when a bad, bad man breaks into Aly's house with the intention of raping and killing her. When all hell breaks lose, they turn to her family for help but that's not without it's pitfalls as they need Josh's hacking skills to help clean up the mess.

I feel like the beginning of this book is a slow burn. While there are some semi-sexual scenes early on, the characters spend almost half the book really getting together and there is a lot of discussion about the Faceless Man and whether or not she knows who he is. The plot with the bad guy breaking in to Aly's house comes relatively late in the book. It seemed to take a long time to get to the point and then the end drags on for what feels like forever. However, as mentioned above I still enjoyed the book overall and would definitely recommend it for those who enjoy dark romance. 

Rating:

❤❤❤❤ - Delightful. I enjoyed it and would recommend it. I probably won't read book two, but book one was a fun read.

Author: Emily McIntire
Genre: Romance, Fairytale
Format: Paperback
Kindle Unlimited: Yes
Published: January 2022
Publisher: Bloom books
Series: A Never After Novel, Book #2
Price: $9.67 (Amazon)

Synopsis: {via GoodReads}

She doesn't belong to him...she belongs to the crown.

Prince Tristan Faasa was never destined for the throne. That was always his brother, Michael. The same brother responsible for both Tristan's tormented childhood and the scar that mars his face. When their father dies, Michael is set to assume the throne, and Tristan is set to steal it. The leader of a secret rebellion, Tristan will stop at nothing to end his brother's reign. But when Michael's new betrothed, Lady Sara Beatreaux arrives, Tristan finds himself in the middle of a new kind of war. The kind that begs the question of what's more important, the crown or the woman about to wear it.

Sara has one plan. Marry the King and eradicate the Faasa line, even at the risk of her own peril. But she never expects the Scarred Prince. He's dangerous. Forbidden. And one of the men she's been sent to kill. But the line between hatred and passion has never seemed so thin, and as secrets come to light, Sara grows unsure of whom she can trust—torn between vengeance and the villain she was never supposed to love.

Scarred is a DARK Royal Romance and a complete standalone within The Never After Series (A series of fractured fairy tales inspired by our favorite villains). It is not a retelling or fantasy. It contains subject matter which may be triggering for some. Reader discretion is advised.

Review: 

*May contain spoilers*

Whew, this one's hot! Scarred is book #2 in Emily McIntire's Never After series and, like Hooked, is another "fractured fairytale" with a main character whose a villain. Tristan and Sara's story take it's fair share of twists and turns, dips into dark themes, and ends with a happily ever after.

The Characters: 

As mentioned above, Tristan, the Scarred Prince, is a hero who is a villain. He's dark, suffered during his childhood, and wants nothing more than to take revenge on his brother, the king. He'll do whatever he needs to, including kidnap and torture, to ensure his ends are met. He's a bit beyond morally grey, right on into morally dark, with a soft spot for both Sara and Simon, a little boy who lives in the castle. 

On the other side, Sara comes off as sweet but capable and it's not long before we learn she's more than she first appears. Sara is a strong heroine and, though she's more morally upstanding than Tristian, she's still a good match for his darkness.

The Plot: 

Scarred is a rift on Hamlet and the Lion King, and it's themes match both those stories very nicely without the plot being directly in-line with them. Tristan, the scarred prince, wants revenge on his brother for killing their father. Sara also wants revenge, on the Fasaa family, for killing her father. In this way, Tristan and Sara's stories make a nice parallel. In the end, it comes down to a lot of small details and, of course, both them them have a shift in priorities. Still, they get their happily ever after and, in the end, the right person is made king. 

There's no loose ends, nothing she doesn't tie up, and the plot moves as a nice clip. Not too fast or two slow. McIntire allows Tristan and Sara to fall in love at a pace that's believable with the rest of the story. There is a madness element to the story, where Michael is concerned, and even that progresses at a pace that makes sense. 

Rating:

❤❤❤❤❤ 5/5 - simply wonderful. This book kept me up reading half the night and kept my interest from the front cover to the back!

Author: Emily McIntire
Genre: Romance, Fairytale
Format: Paperback
Kindle Unlimited: Yes
Published: September 2021
Publisher: Bloom Books
Series: A Never After Novel, Book #1
Price: $8.63 (Amazon)

Synopsis: {via GoodReads}

He wants revenge, but he wants her more…

James has always had one agenda: destroy his enemy, Peter Michaels. When Peter’s twenty-year-old daughter Wendy shows up in James’s bar, he sees his way in. Seduce the girl and use her for his revenge. It’s the perfect plan, until things in James’s organization begin to crumble. Suddenly, he has to find the traitor in his midst, and his plan for revenge gets murkier as James starts to see Wendy as more than just a pawn in his game.

Wendy has been cloistered away most of her life by her wealthy cold father, but a spontaneous night out with friends turns into an intense and addictive love affair with the dark and brooding James. As much as she knows James is dangerous, Wendy can’t seem to shake her desire for him. But as their relationship grows more heated and she learns more about the world he moves in, she finds herself unsure if she’s falling for the man known as James or the monster known as Hook.

Hooked is a dark contemporary romance and the first complete standalone in the Never After Series: A collection of fractured fairy tales where the villains get the happy ever after. It is not a literal retelling and not fantasy. Hooked features mature themes and content that may not be suitable for all audiences. Reader discretion is advised. For all content warnings, check the author's website.

Review: 

*Contains Spoilers* 

I'm not going to lie, I didn't care for this book at all. If I had stopped reading this series with this book, I'd have a pretty terrible opinion of this book series... thankfully, I didn't do that. Hooked by Emily McIntire is a rift on the Peter Pan story. The characters are a mix and the story is nothing like Peter Pan, so it's not a retelling at all. If you're looking for that, this book isn't for you. Rather, it's a mix of Peter Pan characters, all sort of blended around. The only similarity is that Hook is still a villain, but this time he's the MC. 

The Characters:

There's not a lot to say here. Hook is a bad dude, he's dark and sexy, and obsessed with Wendy from the first moment he sees her. Wendy is a sweet little virgin whose drawn to the bad dude because she ignores all the red flats and doesn't seem to know he's a bad guy. McIntire does do a good job of making James/Hook a morally dark character, but Wendy is a bit of a punching bag. She forgives too easily and falls in love with a man who hurts her. Wendy is also not a believable character. She lives in a mansion but she works as a barista?

The Plot: 

The plot is a bit of a mess. There are moments you're not sure who knows what. It's not clear if Hook knows Wendy is Peter's daughter from the start or if he figures it out later, but somehow he sort of just seems to suddenly know she's his enemy's child. The bad-bad guy is set up the whole book to be one guy only to find out near the end of the book that it's someone else. And, there's a subplot with Wendy's brother that's very obvious from the beginning. 

I struggled a little bit with the fact that Wendy, who is fairly naive, simply forgives Hook for kidnapping and keeping her chained up in his basement. She just seems to forget he keeps her locked up for weeks. She's also portrayed as naive, but wants some pretty advanced sex play.

The biggest issue I had with the book is that the romance between Wendy and James/Hook isn't believable. Why in the world would she fall for him? We, normal real world women, love morally grey/dark romance heroes, the guys who hold women hostage and commit murder, in theory but we wouldn't want those guys in the real world. Likewise, why does Hook fall for Wendy? She's not very interesting. 

The Review: 

❤❤ - Just alright. I wouldn't recommend this book, but I do recommend the series. Skip this one and pick up Scarred (book #2).