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emiliejakobsen's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
5.0
helizaams's review
5.0
not for the faint of heart. This made me realize I indeed had issues. Zade Meadows is in the top book boyfriends now after reading this. TRIGGER WARNING! As someone with PTSD I enjoyed the first one but the second one took me awhile because its very detailed and I'd just read the warnings before diving into the second one. But good first book and very enjoyable haha.
rjordan19's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Readability: 📖📖📖📖📖 (It took me a bit to get into this one and I was annoyed in the beginning, but after about 30% I didn’t want to stop reading!)
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔 (There’s more for the heroine, but Is till feel like this story focused a lot on the present, plot events, and not much background for the characters – Z especially you don’t know a ton about him)
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡⚡ (I loved the tension build up in this one – it has some slow burn feelings with them taking awhile to be on page together, but a build up of events)
Romance: 💞💞💞 (I mean….I thought some things were romantic but obviously TOXIC AF – but for fictional things….there were things I liked)
Sensuality: 💋💋💋💋 (I loved these intimate scenes. I thought there was a good mix of ‘in the head’ emotional feels and explicit details
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥+
Humor: Yes? There’s humor sprinkled out...there’s dark elements. It’s not really a humorous or lighthearted book but I was definitely getting some Dead Pool vibes
Perspective: First person from both hero and heroine
More character focused or plot focused? A bit of a mix but maybe more plot? There were a lot of meandering scenes and thoughts, and a lot about trying to solve the mystery of the great grandmother’s death
How did the speed of the story feel? slow
When mains are first on page together: It took forever! I think it was chapter 11 of 42 when they are first on page together and chapter 15 with their first interaction. But there were some interactions before then – mention of her seeing him at a book signing, scenes of him stalking her, but they weren’t actually on page together interacting until well into the story
Cliffhanger: Yes, this ends on a big cliffhanger and is concluding in book 2 (Hunting Adeline) with a HEA
Epilogue: No
Format: listened to audiobook (owned)
Why I chose this book: Because it’s everywhere and I had to have an opinion too
Should I read in order?
Yes! This is book 1 but please start here.
Basic plot:
Adeline catches the eye of Z and her world will never be the same.
Give this a try if you want:
- Dark romance! Plenty of content warnings, including murder on page, torture, death, child/human trafficking, as well as toxic relationship elements like severe stalking and codependent relationships
- stalker hero!
- author heroine (not a huge part of the story)
- mystery to solve – the heroine finds her great grandmothers diaries in the house she inherits and tries to solve the mystery of her murder
- spooky/gothic vibes – the heroine lives in basically a haunting mansion
- hero has heterochromia
- scarred and tattooed hero
- Seattle setting
- higher steam but it had a little bit of a slower burn feel – primal play, ravishment fantasy, dominating hero with biting and bruising, throat play, bondage, brat elements and 10ish full scenes
Ages:
- heroine is 26, hero is 32
First line:
The windows of my house tremble from the power of thunder rolling across the skies.
My thoughts:
So, obv I’ve seen this book all over, forever. And I was a little scared to read it. I didn’t really hear a lot of specifics about it, just that it was dark and fucked up. But I like to have opinions on things, so when my friend said she was reading it, I made the dive in!
This book is way too long for me right now 😝 and I’m struggling with long books. I grabbed it on kindle unlimited but saw I could get the audio for cheap so I grabbed it there and I’m really glad I did! I really loved the narration here and I think it helped me like the book more.
I was a bit annoyed in the beginning. It felt slow and meandering and I was basically rabid for the mains to have some kind of interaction. But when they do, I was totally hooked. I wanted to be reading this all the time.
The hero – I can’t even say I liked him. But I loved him? He was very toxic, of course, and arrogant and said such cringy stuff...but I don’t know if it was just giving me Dead Pool vibes or just giving me all my toxic fantasies lol. I have read a number of books with similar elements recently and I can’t help but feel like they were taken with inspiration from this story but this story just made it better. I had better tension building with this one and I loved being in the heros POV so much.
I love those jerky, arrogant, pushy, dominating heroes and Zade delivers that in spades. Stalking, jealous and possessive he gave me everything I wanted in that regard. I loved this book for that, though some of the plot and the scenes went a little out of my comfort zone.
Few random reading stats for this author
# of books read: This is my first by this author
Average rating: 5 stars
Favorite book: This one!
Endearments
Hero calls the heroine ‘little mouse’.
Content warnings: These should be taken as a minimum of what to expect. It’s very possible I have missed some.
- god, lots of them. I’m sure I’m going to miss a bunch.
- the hero stalks the heroine and doesn’t take no for an answer. He rapes her with a gun handle but it’s very ravishment fantasy in the way it’s written. She is coerced, but there’s feelings of want there. If consent is important to you I would never touch this novel
- there’s a lot of death, murder, torture on page. The hero has a torture chamber and has murdered plenty of people and it happens on page multiple times
- there’s a human trafficking/child murdering ring that’s a big plot point. There’s mention of children kidnapped and killed. There’s mention of cannibalism and drinking children’s blood and child rape.
- there’s elements of parental toxicity and death of family members
- mention of a past fire, where people died in the house and their ghosts haunt it
- some brief thoughts of suicide while standing on a cliff
- scenes of smoking and alcohol
Author content warnings? Didn’t hear them in the audiobook but I think they are in the e-book
Locations of kisses/intimate scenes, safe sex aspects, consent, pregnancy/child in the story:
Safe sex: No, but I think the heroine is on birth control
Hows the consent? Oh, its so bad. No consent here.
Pregnancy/children in story? (Please note this is the best to my memory/note taking. If you see something I missed please feel free to message!) No children in the story, but there is some mention I think of the hero wanting to get the heroine pregnant? But there is no pregnancy on page or mentioned in this story.
Early chapter – there’s a kiss with Grayson that’s interrupted
Chapter 8 – fingering for her with a man she brought home from a club
Chapter 15 – 🔥 biting and bruising, a non-consensual gun fucking scene
Chapter 17 – mention of heroine self pleasure
Chapter 18 – 🔥 bondage and mouth taped, oral for her, biting, fingering
Chapter 21 – 🔥 kisses, hero slaps her with his cock, bj
Chapter 22 – kiss
Chapter 23 – 🔥 bj, throat play with a belt
Chapter 25 – 🔥 daddy/little girl dirty talk, fingering for her during a movie
Chapter 27 – kisses
Chapter 29 – 🔥 kisses in a house of mirrors, forceful bj, sex against the mirror, well endowed hero
Chapter 33 – 🔥 kisses, primal play, heroine self pleasure in front of the hero, sex against a tree
Chapter 34 – 🔥 oral in the car with seatbelt bondage, her on top
Chapter 38 – 🔥 heroine self pleasure
Chapter 40 – 🔥 her on top, primal play, missionary
Total chapters: 42
Readability: 📖📖📖📖📖 (It took me a bit to get into this one and I was annoyed in the beginning, but after about 30% I didn’t want to stop reading!)
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔 (There’s more for the heroine, but Is till feel like this story focused a lot on the present, plot events, and not much background for the characters – Z especially you don’t know a ton about him)
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡⚡ (I loved the tension build up in this one – it has some slow burn feelings with them taking awhile to be on page together, but a build up of events)
Romance: 💞💞💞 (I mean….I thought some things were romantic but obviously TOXIC AF – but for fictional things….there were things I liked)
Sensuality: 💋💋💋💋 (I loved these intimate scenes. I thought there was a good mix of ‘in the head’ emotional feels and explicit details
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥+
Humor: Yes? There’s humor sprinkled out...there’s dark elements. It’s not really a humorous or lighthearted book but I was definitely getting some Dead Pool vibes
Perspective: First person from both hero and heroine
More character focused or plot focused? A bit of a mix but maybe more plot? There were a lot of meandering scenes and thoughts, and a lot about trying to solve the mystery of the great grandmother’s death
How did the speed of the story feel? slow
When mains are first on page together: It took forever! I think it was chapter 11 of 42 when they are first on page together and chapter 15 with their first interaction. But there were some interactions before then – mention of her seeing him at a book signing, scenes of him stalking her, but they weren’t actually on page together interacting until well into the story
Cliffhanger: Yes, this ends on a big cliffhanger and is concluding in book 2 (Hunting Adeline) with a HEA
Epilogue: No
Format: listened to audiobook (owned)
Why I chose this book: Because it’s everywhere and I had to have an opinion too
Should I read in order?
Yes! This is book 1 but please start here.
Basic plot:
Adeline catches the eye of Z and her world will never be the same.
Give this a try if you want:
- Dark romance! Plenty of content warnings, including murder on page, torture, death, child/human trafficking, as well as toxic relationship elements like severe stalking and codependent relationships
- stalker hero!
- author heroine (not a huge part of the story)
- mystery to solve – the heroine finds her great grandmothers diaries in the house she inherits and tries to solve the mystery of her murder
- spooky/gothic vibes – the heroine lives in basically a haunting mansion
- hero has heterochromia
- scarred and tattooed hero
- Seattle setting
- higher steam but it had a little bit of a slower burn feel – primal play, ravishment fantasy, dominating hero with biting and bruising, throat play, bondage, brat elements and 10ish full scenes
Ages:
- heroine is 26, hero is 32
First line:
The windows of my house tremble from the power of thunder rolling across the skies.
My thoughts:
So, obv I’ve seen this book all over, forever. And I was a little scared to read it. I didn’t really hear a lot of specifics about it, just that it was dark and fucked up. But I like to have opinions on things, so when my friend said she was reading it, I made the dive in!
This book is way too long for me right now 😝 and I’m struggling with long books. I grabbed it on kindle unlimited but saw I could get the audio for cheap so I grabbed it there and I’m really glad I did! I really loved the narration here and I think it helped me like the book more.
I was a bit annoyed in the beginning. It felt slow and meandering and I was basically rabid for the mains to have some kind of interaction. But when they do, I was totally hooked. I wanted to be reading this all the time.
The hero – I can’t even say I liked him. But I loved him? He was very toxic, of course, and arrogant and said such cringy stuff...but I don’t know if it was just giving me Dead Pool vibes or just giving me all my toxic fantasies lol. I have read a number of books with similar elements recently and I can’t help but feel like they were taken with inspiration from this story but this story just made it better. I had better tension building with this one and I loved being in the heros POV so much.
I love those jerky, arrogant, pushy, dominating heroes and Zade delivers that in spades. Stalking, jealous and possessive he gave me everything I wanted in that regard. I loved this book for that, though some of the plot and the scenes went a little out of my comfort zone.
Few random reading stats for this author
# of books read: This is my first by this author
Average rating: 5 stars
Favorite book: This one!
Endearments
Content warnings: These should be taken as a minimum of what to expect. It’s very possible I have missed some.
- god, lots of them. I’m sure I’m going to miss a bunch.
- the hero stalks the heroine and doesn’t take no for an answer. He rapes her with a gun handle but it’s very ravishment fantasy in the way it’s written. She is coerced, but there’s feelings of want there. If consent is important to you I would never touch this novel
- there’s a lot of death, murder, torture on page. The hero has a torture chamber and has murdered plenty of people and it happens on page multiple times
- there’s a human trafficking/child murdering ring that’s a big plot point. There’s mention of children kidnapped and killed. There’s mention of cannibalism and drinking children’s blood and child rape.
- there’s elements of parental toxicity and death of family members
- mention of a past fire, where people died in the house and their ghosts haunt it
- some brief thoughts of suicide while standing on a cliff
- scenes of smoking and alcohol
Author content warnings? Didn’t hear them in the audiobook but I think they are in the e-book
Locations of kisses/intimate scenes, safe sex aspects, consent, pregnancy/child in the story:
Safe sex:
Hows the consent?
Pregnancy/children in story? (Please note this is the best to my memory/note taking. If you see something I missed please feel free to message!)
Early chapter – there’s a kiss with Grayson that’s interrupted
Chapter 8 – fingering for her with a man she brought home from a club
Chapter 15 – 🔥 biting and bruising, a non-consensual gun fucking scene
Chapter 17 – mention of heroine self pleasure
Chapter 18 – 🔥 bondage and mouth taped, oral for her, biting, fingering
Chapter 21 – 🔥 kisses, hero slaps her with his cock, bj
Chapter 22 – kiss
Chapter 23 – 🔥 bj, throat play with a belt
Chapter 25 – 🔥 daddy/little girl dirty talk, fingering for her during a movie
Chapter 27 – kisses
Chapter 29 – 🔥 kisses in a house of mirrors, forceful bj, sex against the mirror, well endowed hero
Chapter 33 – 🔥 kisses, primal play, heroine self pleasure in front of the hero, sex against a tree
Chapter 34 – 🔥 oral in the car with seatbelt bondage, her on top
Chapter 38 – 🔥 heroine self pleasure
Chapter 40 – 🔥 her on top, primal play, missionary
Total chapters: 42