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Showing posts with label found family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label found family. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 07, 2026

Review: Reaper and Ruin (Saint View Murder Squad #3) by Elle Thorpe

Reaper and Ruin (Saint View Murder Squad #3)

Reaper and Ruin (Saint View Murder Squad #3)

by Elle Thorpe

★★★★★

Read: March 26, 2026

470 pages


I've read nineteen books into this universe and Elle Thorpe still hasn't run out of ways to wreck me. I don't know whether to be impressed or concerned.

Reaper and Ruin is everything a final book in a trilogy should be — chaotic, emotional, earned, and absolutely unhinged in the best Saint View tradition. Violet's story closes the way it opened: loud, dangerous, and full of people loving each other badly and completely at the same time.

X owns my entire heart and has since book one, but this one gave me more of him than I was prepared for. There's always been something devastating underneath the comedy — that particular brand of aching, terrified tenderness hiding behind the chaos — and Reaper and Ruin finally lets you see all of it. He wrecked me repeatedly and I would let him do it again.

The Levi and Whip thread that's been building across three books? It pays off. Not gracefully — nothing in Saint View is graceful — but honestly, in a hallway, with no warning, the way it had to be. I've been waiting for it and it was worth every agonizing page of tension.

There are moments in this book that will live in my chest for a long time. Some of them are hilarious. Some of them I wasn't ready for at all. That's the Elle Thorpe signature and I fall for it every single time.

The found family in this series has always been its heartbeat, but by the end of this one it had grown into something I genuinely didn't see coming — and the moments that landed hardest weren't the ones I expected.

The epilogue sets up the next trilogy with a gut punch I'm still thinking about. Naya deserves the entire world and I will be first in line when her book drops.

Thank you, Elle, for the ACL and for another Saint View adventure that had me giggling one minute and clutching my chest the next. You are a menace and I mean that with my whole heart.

Tropes: why-choose · MM between love interests · morally grey MMCs · psychopath love interest · found family · touch-her-and-die · accidental pregnancy · unhinged banter · dark romcom · interconnected universe

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Wednesday, September 30, 2026

Review: Butcher & Blackbird (The Ruinous Love Trilogy #1) by Brynne Weaver





Butcher & Blackbird (The Ruinous Love Trilogy #1)

by Brynne Weaver

★★★★☆

Read: December 15, 2023

355 pages


What an amazing story!!! The relationship between Rowan and Sloan was simply perfect and I loved how Brynne handled the extended timeline (events happen over the course of 4+ years). The characters are simply perfect for each other and their banter was on point. Even though they are two psychos (their word, not mine) who kill other killers, there were so many sweet moments between the two of them. Honestly, I read it in 24 hours, I couldn't stop!
BTW the audiobook is a duet narration, and the narrators are AWESOME.

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Friday, September 25, 2026

Review: Kill Order (The Guild, #3) by Tate James

Kill Order (The Guild, #3)

Kill Order (The Guild, #3)

by Tate James

★★★★★

Read: August 24, 2026

561 pages


This book had no business making me laugh as hard as it did while simultaneously putting me through emotional hell.

Kill Order picks up exactly where Dead Drop left off and doesn't let you breathe for long. The dynamic between Danny, Leon, and Kai is what carries this entire series, and Tate James sticks the landing in every register — the tension, the humor, the heat, and the moments where everything goes quiet and someone bleeds.

Leon. I have been in love with this man since book one and Kill Order only made it worse. He's calculated, ruthless, emotionally intelligent in ways that catch you off guard, and so fiercely devoted to Danny that every move he makes — even the terrible ones — is a declaration. He doesn't announce that he loves her. He just acts. Every single time. And his sense of humor in the darkest moments is half the reason this book works.

Kai's growth is quieter but just as important. He starts this book as the odd one out — the muscle who doesn't fully understand the game — and ends it as someone who's learned to show up in ways that have nothing to do with strength. The small gestures, the ones nobody asked him for, are the ones that hit the hardest (the soup bowl?!).

Carlos showing up again made me genuinely happy. His friendship with Danny is one of my favorite things in this series — sibling energy so pure it's almost aggressive, and his loyalty never wavers even when it costs him. He brings levity to moments that desperately need it and proves once again that he'd walk into anything for her without hesitation.

There's a new character who stole every scene he was in. No spoilers, but if you know, you know — zero filter, maximum chaos, and a moral compass that's sharper than most of the adults around him.

The villain reveal genuinely got me. I did not see it coming, and when it landed, it recontextualized everything. That's the kind of twist that earns its shock because the emotional math checks out after the fact.

The spice is frequent, intense & kinky— four chili peppers, easily. And the way the throuple's dynamic evolves feels earned rather than rushed. These three are learning to exist inside each other's space, and every intimate scene reflects that progression.

Pacing dips in the middle — there are stretches that slow more than the momentum can afford — but the character work and the emotional payoffs more than compensate. The ending lands exactly where it should.

Four and a half stars. Leon forever. And a certain houseplant deserves his own spin-off.

Tropes: why-choose (MFM) · assassins · secret identity · found family · obsessive MMC · action/thriller · revenge plot · forced proximity · morally grey everything

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Tuesday, September 22, 2026

Review: Whips and Chains (Saint View Murder Squad #2) by Elle Thorpe

Whips and Chains (Saint View Murder Squad #2)

Whips and Chains (Saint View Murder Squad #2)

by Elle Thorpe

★★★★☆

Read: October 11, 2025

380 pages


Elle, you absolute menace—in the best possible way. You’ve done it again.

Whips & Chains throws us right back into Saint View’s chaos and doesn’t let go for a second. I laughed out loud, clutched my chest, and at one point might have whispered “no, no, no” while out in public. The emotional swings in this one are brutal and delicious—Elle somehow manages to make heartbreak and humor live in the same breath, and I adore her for it.

Violet is going through hell, but she’s also growing, finding strength and softness in equal measure. Watching her dynamic with the boys shift—especially X—was everything. He owns my entire heart at this point. There’s something about the way his madness hides a strange, aching tenderness that just wrecks me. And the banter? Some of the best lines I’ve heard in a long time. I was grinning like a fool half the time, swooning the rest.

The audiobook was an experience all on its own. A full-cast duet with sound effects—it felt cinematic, immersive, and alive. Gregory Salinas as X was perfection, Kelsey Navarro-Foster captured every ounce of Violet’s vulnerability and fire, Theo Sinclair was the perfect Levi, and Sean Crisden saying “good girl” should be illegal.

And that ending? Jesus. Holy. Cliffhanger. My jaw literally dropped. I am not okay, and I need book three RIGHT NOW!

Thank you, Elle, for the audiobook—what a ride. You’ve once again proven why Saint View feels like home, chaos and all.

Main tropes: why-choose · dark romcom · found family · protective & possessive MMCs · unhinged MMCs · tall curvy FMC · Bi-awakening · hilarious banter

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Wednesday, September 16, 2026

Review: Beautifully Ruined (Devoted In Darkness #2) by Kira Cole

Beautifully Ruined (Devoted In Darkness #2)

Beautifully Ruined (Devoted In Darkness #2)

by Kira Cole

★★★☆☆

Read: August 27, 2026

408 pages


⭐ 3.5 stars (contain slight spoilers)

I wanted to love this one the way I loved Sweetly Unhinged. I didn't. And the frustrating part is that I can see exactly where the book lost me, because everything that made the first one electric is still here — just disconnected from its power source.

Book one ran on a dual engine: the secret identity, the tension of who is he really, the spice that carried a question underneath every touch. Every scene did double work. When the masks came off at the end, it was devastating because we'd earned every second of that unraveling. Book two starts with the masks already merged, and the relationship settled into something real and warm and committed — which is emotionally satisfying and narratively flat. Cole compensates with volume. The spice is frequent, creative, varied, and genuinely well-written. But frequency isn't tension. Twelve scenes without a question mark underneath them don't hit the way one scene with a secret in it does.

The new engine is supposed to be the rescue mission — a girl Violet met briefly during her own captivity, now missing, and Violet's determination to find her at any cost. And I respect the impulse. Violet going from the woman things happened to in book one to the woman making dangerous choices in book two is real growth. But the book never quite earns the scale of her obsession. There's a brief window of trauma after the rescue — sleepless nights, only settling when Cade is beside her — and then it fades, replaced by a fixation that keeps escalating without the emotional roots to support it. The guilt is mentioned. It's never inhabited. I kept waiting for it to cost her something internally — nightmares, flashbacks, the kind of deterioration that would make her increasingly reckless choices feel inevitable instead of plot-convenient. It never came.

Cade is still Cade, and I still love watching his brain work. Stripped of every advantage early on — battered, caged, bargaining with nothing but a dead man's switch and his own nerve — he's at his best when the walls are closing in. I just wish the book had given him more moments where the spice carried the same weight it did in book one — heat and heart fused into one breath, meaning something beyond the mechanics.

And for all the elaborate set pieces, the moment that actually stuck with me is a throwaway: no plot stakes, no tension, just pure unscripted chaos involving an elevator and a stranger who had no idea what he'd walked into. It's the funniest scene in the book, and it landed harder than any of the carefully choreographed ones because it let these two just be ridiculous and in love. Cole is at her best when she stops engineering and lets the mess be the moment.

Enzo, though. Give that man his own book. Funny, loyal, allergic to the worst kind of evil for reasons nobody's named yet, and smart enough to know better than every risk he takes anyway. He walks into every room like a side character and walks out like a main one on layaway. I'll be here for his story.

The pacing drags through the investigation. The resolution arrives too cleanly. But this isn't a bad book — it's a disappointing sequel to a very good one, and there's a difference. Cole can write spice that sears and banter that lands and a relationship dynamic that feels lived-in rather than performed. She just needs the story around it to be running on something more than good intentions and escalating set pieces.

I'll probably read the next one. But book one got me to spend an Audible credit.on book 2, and this one makes me hold back on book 3.

Tropes: established relationship · dom/sub dynamic · hacker hero · voyeurism/exhibitionism · rescue mission · trafficking investigation · found family · ride-or-die best friend

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Tuesday, August 18, 2026

Review: Don't Say Mafia (The Wrong Made Men #1) by C.R. Jane

Don't Say Mafia (The Wrong Made Men #1)

Don't Say Mafia (The Wrong Made Men #1)

by C.R. Jane

★★★☆☆

Read: August 13, 2026

521 pages


Thank you Podium audio for the ALC.

I went into this one blind, which is how I always do it. Dark mafia romance, obsessive MMC, a woman trapped in a life that's slowly suffocating her — on paper, this should have been right up my alley. And in some ways, the bones are there. C.R. Jane knows how to build an MMC who decides and doesn't hesitate. Jagger is intense, possessive, and unwavering in his pursuit of Eden from the moment he sees her in his casino. If you love morally black heroes who fall first and would burn the world to possess the woman they want, this will absolutely deliver for you.

It just wasn't the right shade for me.

What I needed — and never really got — was a heroine who was given a real choice. Eden is a survivor. She's resilient and resourceful, but the story is structured in a way that her agency gets quietly stripped away, piece by piece, until the love story feels less like a surrender and more like an inevitability she was never allowed to escape. I don't need my dark MMCs to be good men. I need the woman choose this bad man with open eyes though. That reckoning never fully came, and without it, the romance didn't land for me.

The found family dynamic between Jagger and his crew was honestly my favorite part of the book. Their banter, their loyalty, the way they move as a unit — that felt the most alive and the most real. Jagger's brother also stole every scene he appeared in. Honestly, I think he might have been my favorite character, with Cruz as close second. He's clearly a cameo from another series.

A note on structure: the early chapters use overlapping timelines between the two main POVs, where each character's chapters cover the same events from their perspective, sometimes starting at different points on the timeline. On audio, this was genuinely disorienting. I wasn't sure which character was which in a key early scene. I genuinely thought there had been a production error. It smooths out after the setup, but it made the first few chapters harder to settle into than they needed to be.

The duet narration by Sean Masters and Alexis Paige is excellent — they bring real presence and chemistry to the performances, and Sean's accent work is a standout.

Content notes: this book contains dubcon/non-con elements, drugging, graphic on-page torture, stalking, and violence. These are not the reason for my rating — I read dark romance regularly and I don't shy away from heavy content. The story simply wasn't for me.

Tropes: obsessive MMC · morally black hero · stalker romance · instalust · mafia romance · forced proximity · murder for love · dubcon/non-con · found family

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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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Wednesday, August 05, 2026

Review: Soul Eater (Monstrous, #1) by Lily Mayne

Soul Eater (Monstrous, #1)

Soul Eater (Monstrous, #1)

by Lily Mayne

★★★★★

Read: December 26, 2025

329 pages


I didn’t expect to fall this hard for a monster romance, but Soul Eater swept me right off my feet. What won me over wasn’t the world or the action, though both are gritty and atmospheric. It was the relationship. Danny and Wyn pulled me in with their contrast: a soft-hearted human who somehow stayed gentle in a brutal world, and a stoic, ancient monster who slowly, almost reluctantly, learned how to care. Their bond felt intimate in a way that crept under my skin. It’s a journey built on trust, devotion, and that slow realization that you’ve become someone’s safe place without meaning to.

The tropes here are my kryptonite: grumpy x sunshine in a post-apocalyptic setting, forced proximity on the road, caretaking, protective instincts that border on feral, and a love that grows in the quiet moments between danger. I also loved the thread of found family, especially with Edin, whose presence adds both tension and humor. The dynamic between these three kept me smiling even through the darker stretches of the story.

What surprised me most was how emotional it became. Danny’s inner world is written so well that I felt every insecurity, every moment of longing, every fragile step toward believing he might be wanted for who he is. And Wyn, for all his silence, ends up being one of the most tender characters I’ve read in a while. Their connection isn’t just spicy, though the intimacy is unique and beautifully done. It’s a story about choosing each other again and again, even when the world keeps trying to tear them apart.

This one made me ache in the best way, and I already know I’ll be thinking about these two long after finishing the last page. I can’t wait to see Edin again in the next book, and I’m secretly hoping for more glimpses of Danny and Wyn along the way.

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Thursday, July 09, 2026

Review: Psycho Pack (Ghost Alpha Unit, #3) by Lenore Rosewood

Psycho Pack (Ghost Alpha Unit, #3)

Psycho Pack (Ghost Alpha Unit, #3)

by Lenore Rosewood

★★★★☆

Read: February 27, 2026

616 pages


This one clawed in deep and refused to let go. Psycho Pack is the brutal, breathless payoff I didn’t know I was starving for—darker, messier, more tangled than the first two combined. The stakes aren’t just higher; they’re personal, vicious, and every single bond is stretched until it either snaps or finally holds.

At its core, this book is about choice—who gets to make it, who gets to take it away, and what happens when a pack of broken alphas finally has to decide if they’re willing to bleed (or kill) to keep the one person who sees them whole. Ivy’s not just surviving anymore; she’s claiming, commanding, setting rules in the middle of chaos, and every time she does it lands like a fist to the chest. The ghosts? They’re not clean heroes. They’re fire and loyalty and jagged edges—Plague unraveling from stoic control to raw, crying vulnerability; Whiskey loud and jealous and stupidly tender when it counts; Wraith refusing to become the monster he was made to be; Valek earning forgiveness one painful inch at a time; Thane carrying the weight of every failure and still choosing to pull the trigger when it matters.

The intimacy here is feral and healing in the same breath. Every touch, every knot, every quiet moment in a cave or a garden rewritten with love instead of blood—it peels back layers without ever feeling gratuitous. The power shifts are delicious: Ivy turning the tables, setting challenges, deciding who gets marked and when. The relational tangles are thick—brothers fighting, betrayals that cut to the bone, redemption that hurts more than rage. And the sex? Hot, but it’s the emotion underneath that wrecks you: claiming, trusting, choosing again and again even when the world keeps trying to rip it apart.

The final act moves fast—almost too fast after all the slow-burn tension—and the big victory lands cleaner than I expected from a story this bloody. I wanted more teeth, more cost, more pages of them clawing through hell. But the epilogue gives them the soft landing they fought for: a cliffside house, a clinic, jealous bullshit, laser treatments, white veils, and marks that bind them forever. It’s completion. It’s peace. And after everything they bled for, it’s earned—even if part of me still craved one more feral fight.

4 stars. This pack has me by the throat and I’m not mad about it. I’ll miss them, and I’m already thinking about the next group picking up the war they left behind.

Tropes you’ll find: why choose, masked men, non-verbal MMC, heavily scarred MMC, found family forged in trauma, broken alphas learning softness, power dynamics that flip hard, touch-her-and-die turned touch-him-and-die too, Burn the world down for her, medical + lab trauma, caretaking, sword-crossing, feral protectiveness, redemption arcs that hurt, quiet claiming after chaos.

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Thursday, July 02, 2026

Review: Unhinged Alphas (Ghost Alpha Unit, #2) by Lenore Rosewood

Unhinged Alphas (Ghost Alpha Unit, #2)

Unhinged Alphas (Ghost Alpha Unit, #2)

by Lenore Rosewood

★★★★☆

Read: January 25, 2026

572 pages


Unhinged Alphas picks up right where Feral Omega left off and then cranks everything darker. We are still in omegaverse territory with one feral omega, her pack of lethal alphas and a corrupt system that sees them all as tools. This book leans much more into the dystopian side of the world, with labs, experiments and government games, so it feels heavier and grittier than book one.

My heart completely belongs to Plague and Wraith in this one. Plague is still the calm in the storm, the medic who pretends he does not care but absolutely does. Every time he drops that controlled exterior and turns into a filthy, focused alpha, I melt. Wraith’s arc just wrecked me. He is nonverbal, scarred and treated like an object by the people who created him, but he will literally endure anything if it means getting one more chance to protect Ivy. There is so much devotion and heartbreak in the way he moves through this book and I loved him even more for it. Ivy herself grows a lot. She is still prickly, stubborn and desperate for freedom, but she starts fighting back harder and showing real compassion toward the other “monsters” around her. She feels less like a victim and more like someone actively choosing who she is going to be.

Valek is where my feelings get complicated. I loved him in book one, but here he makes some choices that rubbed hard against my personal lines around consent and control. It is clear he believes he is doing the right thing and the author keeps him in that morally gray space rather than turning him into a pure villain, but I am not rooting for him romantically the way I was. I am still fascinated by him as a character, just wary now.

The worldbuilding takes a big step forward with more of the lab program revealed, more players introduced and the sense that this conflict is much larger than one pack and one omega. The downside is that the ending is very much “middle of the arc.” Nothing is neatly resolved, the pack is scattered and Ivy is not safely home when the book stops, so you close it feeling wrung out and very ready for the next installment.

If you like dark omegaverse with found family packs, traumatised lab rats, a feral omega who refuses to be tamed and alphas who are as broken as they are devoted, this is an intense and addictive read. Just be aware of heavy themes like captivity, medical experimentation and non consensual drugging and go in knowing you are signing up for a multi book journey, not a tidy ending here.

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Monday, June 29, 2026

Review: Feral Omega (Ghost Alpha Unit, #1) by Lenore Rosewood

Feral Omega (Ghost Alpha Unit, #1)

Feral Omega (Ghost Alpha Unit, #1)

by Lenore Rosewood

★★★★☆

Read: January 16, 2026

382 pages


Feral Omega drops you into a brutal post-apocalyptic omegaverse where betas run the show, alphas are weaponised, and omegas are treated like property. Ivy is a feral, deeply traumatised omega who has survived a “correction” centre that is anything but corrective, and she’s handed over to a misfit alpha strike team called the Ghosts as a last resort. From there the book becomes a mix of dark, violent worldbuilding and very intense hurt/comfort, as this pack of broken men slowly re-orient their lives around the one girl they were never supposed to care about.

Tropes wise, this is why-choose omegaverse with found family, damaged antiheroes, feral heroine, forced proximity, and heavy trauma recovery baked into the romance. The Ghosts are essentially a suicide squad: a haunted leader who is trying very hard to do the right thing, a masked medic with ice in his veins and way too much control, a pretty boy with a big mouth and a bigger heart, a charming little psycho with a violent streak, and one hulking “monster” everyone is half afraid of. Watching each of them soften, in their own reluctant way, as Ivy claws her way back from survival mode was my favourite part of the book. My top moments were almost all built around Plague and the boys, especially when their hostility or banter cracked open into something a lot more charged.
Ivy herself is easy to root for. She is stubborn, feral, and understandably wary of every alpha in a world that has only ever used her. This is not a sunshine heroine. She bites first, she runs when she can, and every scrap of trust she gives the Ghosts feels earned. The story never forgets what she has been through, and when things finally turn from survival to pleasure, it feels like a reclaiming rather than a gloss over.

I landed at four stars. I loved the pack, I loved Ivy’s spine, and I loved the way some of the intimate moments were used to rewrite her history with touch and heat, but a few emotional beats felt a little rushed for me, like the trauma curve and the sexual escalation were not always perfectly aligned. That said, the character dynamics completely hooked me, especially the tension between certain alphas, and the quiet ache wrapped around the one everyone treats like a monster. I closed the book feeling satisfied with the arc we got and very curious to see how their bond and the wider conspiracy evolve in book two.

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Sunday, June 21, 2026

Review: Sinners Retreat (Slaycation #1) by Lauren Biel

Sinners Retreat (Slaycation #1)

Sinners Retreat (Slaycation #1)

by Lauren Biel

★★★★☆

Read: April 19, 2026

366 pages


I went into this knowing absolutely nothing except "serial killers on a tropical island" and honestly? That's the only context you need.

Sinner's Retreat is the most unhinged premise executed with complete, deadpan commitment — and that commitment is everything. This isn't a book that winks at the camera. The murder resort activities are treated with the same logistical seriousness as any luxury retreat itinerary, and somehow that makes it funnier and darker simultaneously. Lauren Biel built a world with its own internal logic and never once apologized for it.

Kendra is a protagonist I didn't know I needed — sharp, competent, perpetually exasperated, and carrying a grief she doesn't know is built on a lie. Her dynamic with Cat is worth the price of admission alone. Cat is an absolute disaster of a human being and I would die for her. The way these two women orbit each other — Kendra's eye-rolls audible from space, Cat blissfully unaware — is comedic gold that somehow also builds into something genuinely warm by the end.

Ezra though. Ezra. The Abattoir Adonis who has been obsessing over a serial killer he's never met, who ends up sitting next to her on a plane without knowing it's her, who falls completely apart the moment she enters his orbit — he's exactly the kind of morally grey MMC I will follow into any disaster. And this is a disaster of his own making, sustained over an entire island vacation, held together by stubbornness and oxytocin and increasingly poor decision-making. The dramatic irony is merciless in the best way.

The spice is filthy and earned. The banter is sharp. The tonal balance between dark comedy and genuine romantic tension holds remarkably well throughout. And the ending — I was not expecting to feel things at a pumpkin carving scene but here we are.

If you're looking for a perfectly normal romance novel, keep walking. If you want something that makes you laugh out loud at things you probably shouldn't be laughing at while also being genuinely invested in whether two serial killers will figure their situation out — this is your book.

If you loved the Ruinous Love trilogy by Brynne Weaver, you will love this one!

Tropes: enemies-to-lovers · secret identity (double) · obsessive MMC · he fell first · found family · kinky spice · accidental (and not-so-accidental) cannibalism · forced proximity · touch-her-and-die · morally grey everything · dark comedy

Side note: Audiobook is duet narration with a full cast!

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