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Showing posts with label captor/captive. Show all posts
Showing posts with label captor/captive. Show all posts

Sunday, August 09, 2026

Review: A Little Bit Obsessed (A Little Bit Unhinged #1) by Chrissy Hopewell

A Little Bit Obsessed (A Little Bit Unhinged #1)

A Little Bit Obsessed (A Little Bit Unhinged #1)

by Chrissy Hopewell

★★★★★

Read: August 3, 2026

376 pages


I did not expect to love this book as hard as I did.

I went in thinking dark romcom — vigilante brothers who hunt predators, a mafia princess who wants nothing to do with the life, forced proximity with a man who has absolutely no business being this attractive while committing felonies. And it IS funny. Genuinely, laugh-out-loud, tears-in-your-eyes funny. But underneath the humor is something with real teeth, and Hopewell never once lets the comedy undercut the emotional stakes.

Wes is the kind of MMC I will follow anywhere. He is meticulous, morally grey in the most compelling way, and so quietly devastated by his own feelings that watching him fall is like watching a controlled demolition in slow motion — everything precise and calculated until it's suddenly, catastrophically not. The way he cares for the FMC is unhinged and tender in equal measure. He will do objectively terrible things to keep her safe and then feel genuinely offended that she didn't protect herself better. His love language is surveillance and baked goods, and somehow that tracks.

Callie is the perfect match for him — not because she's fearless, but because she keeps choosing to stay even when her brain is screaming at her to run. She's spent years being invisible to the people who were supposed to see her, and Wes sees her with his entire body. Every tracker, every uninvited pie, every moment of fury when someone else touches her — it's the most intense attention she's ever received, and watching her fight against how much she wants it is agonizing in the best way.

Noah. Oh, Noah. The impulsive brother, the one who runs hot, the one everyone underestimates. He is so much sharper than he lets on, and the moments where his emotional intelligence cuts through the chaos are some of the best scenes in the book. He's getting his own story next and I am not ready.

The pacing is tight. The banter is *chef's kiss*. The spice is earned and woven into the emotional arc, never decorative. And there's a subplot involving competitive baking and an elderly woman that I cannot say more about except that it is one of the most delightful threads I've encountered in dark romance. Trust the pie. The pie matters.

This book made me laugh, made me clutch my chest, and made me genuinely sad when it was over. Five stars and I need book two immediately.

Tropes: stalker romance · vigilante MMC · forced proximity · captor/captive · morally grey · obsessive love · touch-her-and-die · he fell first · mafia adjacent · dark comedy · brothers dynamic

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Friday, May 15, 2026

Review: Famine (The Four Horsemen, #3) by Laura Thalassa

Famine (The Four Horsemen, #3)

Famine (The Four Horsemen, #3)

by Laura Thalassa

★★★★☆

Read: May 15, 2026

512 pages


Of the three Horsemen I’ve met so far, Famine might be the cruelest — and somehow one of the most affecting.

Where Pestilence stumbled into love almost against his will, Famine resists it with his entire being. He doesn’t just kill; he believes in it. His indifference to humanity feels ancient, absolute, and immovable, which makes watching that certainty slowly crack the entire engine of the book.

Ana is exactly the kind of heroine this story needed. She arrives with justified rage, a knife, and scars that run deeper than the visible ones, but she never becomes one-note. She’s sharp-tongued, stubborn, funny, and empathetic in a way that feels almost inconvenient. Not soft because life has been kind to her, but compassionate despite the fact that it hasn’t. That distinction is what makes her so compelling.

The slow burn here is thornier than the previous books. Famine doesn’t soften easily. He resists, deflects, misunderstands, and makes horrifying choices even when he’s trying to adjust. But that’s also why the intimacy, when it finally comes, feels earned. This isn’t a clean redemption arc. It’s messy, brutal, and emotionally complicated — which is exactly why it works.

Thalassa does a great job balancing apocalypse, banter, horror, and tenderness without letting the romance erase the violence of the world around them. The Brazilian setting gave this installment its own texture, and Ana’s backstory added real emotional weight without pulling focus from the central dynamic.

The ending definitely makes the next book feel bigger and more inevitable. I’m not rushing into Death yet, because these books are heavy slow burns and apparently I value my emotional stability a little, but I am very curious to see how everything ends.

One production note for GraphicAudio listeners: the performances were good, but the sound design was too heavy-handed for me. Music and ambient effects often overpowered the narration, especially during emotional, intimate, or travel-heavy scenes. If intrusive production bothers you, the standard audiobook may be the better choice.

Pestilence still holds the top spot for me, but Famine pushed War firmly into third.

Tropes: apocalyptic romance · enemies-to-lovers · forced proximity · captor/captive · morally grey MMC · Sex worker FMC · divine being/human romance · slow burn · revenge · reluctant protector · touch-her-and-die energy · emotional caretaking

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