 | Graves by Katelyn Taylor ★★★☆☆ Read: October 18, 2026 457 pages |
This book has a lot going on. Twin mercenaries, a girl caught between them, a stalker dynamic that isn't quite what it seems, and enough emotional damage in the backstory that could easily fill three novels. The bones are there. The ambition is there. I just never fully sank into it.
Dominic and Zayden are interesting separately — Dominic with his possessive intensity and Zayden with his unhingedness and the protective edge he hides behind cruelty. The dynamic between the brothers has real teeth. There's a competitiveness layered over something deeper, something neither of them can name, and when the book leans into that tension, it works. The knife scenes, the cemetery, the moments where the violence between them isn't really about her at all — those have weight, but they disappointed me at times, especially Dominic.
Blake is in an impossible position, and Taylor doesn't shy away from it. She's sandwiched between two men who are fundamentally dangerous to her and to each other, and the moments where she holds her own are genuinely satisfying. But there's an information asymmetry between Blake and the reader that kept pulling me out. We know things she doesn't — about who's been protecting her, about why — and waiting for her to catch up felt more like stalling than tension.
The backstory, when it finally lands, is devastating. These boys were forged in something genuinely awful, and the reveal of how they got there hits hard. I just wish the book had let me sit with it longer instead of accelerating into the final act. Hers is equally has terrible, but it's at least processed.
The spice has heat and the darker elements are committed — Taylor doesn't flinch from what she's writing. But I never felt that gut-deep pull, the thing that makes me rearrange my day to keep listening. I put it aside for six weeks and picking it back up felt like a decision, not a compulsion. For me, that says more than any specific criticism could.
It's a solid read. If you love dark romance with twin dynamics and morally grey MMCs who were never given a chance to be anything else, I'm sure you will enjoy it. Honestly, I find it hard to pinpoint why I didn't enjoy it more. The world Taylor's building across her books has real potential, and I'll still read Graves & Griggs because I already own it but this one just didn't own me the way I wanted it to.
Tropes: twin MMCs · stalker romance · dark romance · possessive MMC · knife play · Peach play · DP · mob/hitman · forced proximity · breeding kink · captor/captive elements · shared FMC · childhood trauma
Dominic and Zayden are interesting separately — Dominic with his possessive intensity and Zayden with his unhingedness and the protective edge he hides behind cruelty. The dynamic between the brothers has real teeth. There's a competitiveness layered over something deeper, something neither of them can name, and when the book leans into that tension, it works. The knife scenes, the cemetery, the moments where the violence between them isn't really about her at all — those have weight, but they disappointed me at times, especially Dominic.
Blake is in an impossible position, and Taylor doesn't shy away from it. She's sandwiched between two men who are fundamentally dangerous to her and to each other, and the moments where she holds her own are genuinely satisfying. But there's an information asymmetry between Blake and the reader that kept pulling me out. We know things she doesn't — about who's been protecting her, about why — and waiting for her to catch up felt more like stalling than tension.
The backstory, when it finally lands, is devastating. These boys were forged in something genuinely awful, and the reveal of how they got there hits hard. I just wish the book had let me sit with it longer instead of accelerating into the final act. Hers is equally has terrible, but it's at least processed.
The spice has heat and the darker elements are committed — Taylor doesn't flinch from what she's writing. But I never felt that gut-deep pull, the thing that makes me rearrange my day to keep listening. I put it aside for six weeks and picking it back up felt like a decision, not a compulsion. For me, that says more than any specific criticism could.
It's a solid read. If you love dark romance with twin dynamics and morally grey MMCs who were never given a chance to be anything else, I'm sure you will enjoy it. Honestly, I find it hard to pinpoint why I didn't enjoy it more. The world Taylor's building across her books has real potential, and I'll still read Graves & Griggs because I already own it but this one just didn't own me the way I wanted it to.
Tropes: twin MMCs · stalker romance · dark romance · possessive MMC · knife play · Peach play · DP · mob/hitman · forced proximity · breeding kink · captor/captive elements · shared FMC · childhood trauma
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