Tag Archives: dark romance

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Book Review: Of Visions & Secrets, by Kathryn Ann Kingsley

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I saw Kathryn Ann Kingsley‘s Of Visions & Secrets recommended on TikTok. I went to add it to my Amazon wish list and noticed it was free that day. So, I nabbed a copy instead.
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The darkness took Emma’s brother. Now it yearns to claim her.

When Emma Mather’s twin brother, Elliot, goes missing from Arnsmouth University, she is determined to stop at nothing to find him. Yet as she follows the clues left behind, she learns that there are far more sinister monstrosities lurking in the shadows of her city than she could have ever imagined.

Elliot’s former teacher, Professor Raphael Saltonstall, may be Emma’s only hope in finding her brother. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long for Emma to realize Rafe is hiding secrets of his own. Despite the sizzling attraction between them, Emma isn’t entirely sure if Rafe is a friend or foe.

As two opposing cults hunt her down for their own twisted agendas, Emma finds tendrils of darkness closing in from all around. Pulsating Things live in the darkness…wriggling in eager anticipation to take her.

If they have their way, they’ll consume her mind, soul…and body.

This was a surprise winner for me. I enjoyed the heck out of it. I loved how upfront and ready Emma was. She put her authentic self right out there for the world to see, and I appreciated it. I thought the world interesting and the characters engaging. They’re all so marvelously morally grey. The writing is clean and easy to read, and I’m invested in what happens next.

I did wish for a little more certainty on the fate of the brother…and admittedly more tentacle action than we were given. The story really is a little slow to get going, and I thought Emma lost a little of her assertive spark as soon as the romance started to build. But I will certainly be continuing the series.

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Book Review: The Dark King, by Gina L. Maxwell

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I received a copy of Gina L. Maxwell‘s The Dark King through Netgalley.
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I thought a weekend away would be the perfect escape. Until I woke up married and trapped…by the king of the Dark Fae.

For Bryn Meara, a free trip to the exclusive and ultra-luxe Nightfall hotel and casino in Vegas should’ve been the perfect way to escape the debris of her crumbling career. But waking up from a martini-and-lust-fueled night to find herself married to Caiden Verran, the reclusive billionaire who owns the hotel and most of the city, isn’t the jackpot one would think. It seems her dark and sexy new husband is actual royalty—the fae king of the Night Court—and there’s an entire world beneath the veil of Vegas.

Whether light or shadow, the fae are a far cry from fairy tales, and now they’ve made Bryn a pawn in their dark games for power. And Caiden is the most dangerous of all—an intoxicating cocktail of sin and raw, insatiable hunger. She should run. But every night of passion pulls Bryn deeper into his strange and sinister world, until she’s no longer certain she wants to leave…even if she could.

Soooo, I didn’t love this. Granted, I didn’t hate it. But it elicited exactly zero feels from me or endeared itself to me in any way. Now, the writing is fine. It’s easy to read. The editing seems clean. So, this is largely a personal taste sort of ‘meh.’ I can acknowledge that it’s a finely written book while also saying it wasn’t one to light me on fire.

I did actually like the characters. I especially liked that Bryn stands up for herself consistently. And the world seems interesting. My issues were that I just never truly felt Caiden and Bryn’s love. It’s instant and then we’re more told about it than shown it. I didn’t think that the BDSM aspects were well integrated into the plot. So, it always seemed to stand out to me as artificial. the dark king photoAnd it doesn’t live up to its own hype.

Caiden is supposed to be sooo dark and dangerous. He goes on and on about how she could never handle his kinks. Heck, the book is called The Dark King. But it’s actually quite sweet, the kink is on the mild side, and the book isn’t even that spicy, comparatively. So, I felt like it built up a promise it didn’t keep.

All in all, it’s a meh for me. I didn’t hate it. But I probably won’t remember it next week.

other Reviews:

One More Book: Review – The Dark King

 

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Book Review: Dancing With the Devil, by Gayatri R.

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I accepted a review copy of Dancing With the Devil, by Gayatri R./Gayatri Ramchandran. It was also featured over on Sadie’s Spotlight.
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Corvo:
They didn’t call me “The Raven” for no reason.
I’m known for being ruthless, lethal, and dangerously magnetic. I’m a shadow, the monster pirouetting in the dark. I’m feared yet loved by all, and the entire city surrenders to my name as I rule them with an iron fist.
People always look both ways before crossing me.
Until Bianca Romano turned my life into a storm with just a single glance.
She became mine to keep.
My obsession.
My beautiful temptation.
I broke my rules for her, but that doesn’t mean she can control me.
She’s staying, and she wants to play my game.
But I’ll show her exactly who’s in control.

Bianca:
They call him “The Raven.”
Legend has it that if you look at him, there’s no going back. But I bent my rules for him, and now I’m his, with no way out.
Corvo De La Rossi isn’t the monster he claims to be.
Because I know underneath that brutal exterior lies a lot of pain.
If he’s the monster, the beast in this fairytale, then I’m the beauty who will put back the broken, lost pieces of him-the one who will tame him.

my review

I am in a really, really awkward place reviewing this book. So, I’m just going to lay it on the table. I received an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this book. And often, ARCs come to reviewers before they’ve had their final editing pass. So, it’s not uncommon to find the occasional editing mishap. I’m used to that. We look over them. But Dancing With the Devil seemed to have come to me before it had any editing, despite releasing only days after I read it. The file I read was really quite rough. I would have DNFed it if I hadn’t been committed to the review.

I normally wouldn’t talk about this in a public review. It, of course, isn’t pertinent to those purchasing or reading the book after it’s had further editing. Presuming it does; we reviewers generally take it on faith that the books will get that additional, final pass. But I feel like I have to mention it here because I’m not wholly able to disentangle how much of my dislike for the book was because of how unpleasant and uncomfortable it was to actually read and how much was not liking the actual story and writing style itself. Do you see my difficulty? I don’t think I can fairly review it without including this note on a possible conflict.

At the end of the day, I gave this a 1-star. I might have been willing to grant it an extra star if I had a dancing with the devil photocleaner copy and knew some of the over-inflated dialogue was toned down and smoothed out. But I don’t think it ever would have been a real winner. Raven talks in catchphrases and monologues like a supervillain pretty much constantly. The plot judders along inconsistently. I was never even wholly able to decide if Raven’s demonic descriptions were meant to suggest he physically had a demonic form or was just poetic license on the author’s part. (So, I literally don’t know if this is a paranormal or contemporary book, AND I’VE FINISHED IT.)

All in all, the best I can maybe say for Gayatri R.’s Dancing With the Devil is that I finished it.

Other Reviews:

https://nolanerds.wordpress.com/2022/08/01/dancing-with-the-devil/

Cheryl’s Booknook: Book Review Dancing With the Devil