Reviews with content warning for Gore - Hooked

Shook me from my reading slump for sure! With the audiobook, I loved the dual narrator. I'm only rating 4.75 because I was not a big fan that each VA didn't narrate their own dialogue in each other's chapters. In other words, Jame's VA put on a girl voice to read Wendy's lines in his chapter and vice versa instead of having them read their respective parts. Also the new England accents were a little rough... but I liked the story well enough! I'll be looking into the other books in the series.

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xtinareally's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ I personally could have done without the graphic description of the violent gory details of the story that weren't even a part of any of the romance. The steamy scenes were hot hot hot. Emily McIntyre did a great job creating a loveable villain, and I was pleasantly surprised with the twists and turns and ending.

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ebreheny25's review

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challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

0.5

THANK F- I FINISHED THIS. I nearly DNFed this book and especially as an audiobook it was a struggle for me. I found some of the nicknames used for the FMC by the MMC very uncomfortable and it felt like this book went in circles at times. I found out that dark romance is just not my thing which is great for future reference.

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lyn_'s review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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bluz19's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious sad tense fast-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

2.75

Hooked is a standalone story of dark contemporary romance. It is apart of the Never After Series which is a collection of fractured fairytales where the villain gets the happily ever after. It is not particularly a retelling as it is a complete remapping of the story. The book features very mature themes that must be considered before reading.

I mainly picked up this book because I usually love the stories of Hook and for once I let social media talk me into a read. I didn’t hate it, I know not the best way to start a review. I am not big into smut, in fact I find it CRINGEY, BUT ultimately I loved the book. Putting the heavy smut aside, the story itself held a lot of parts I did like. This book is very dark and twisted. It definitely hooked me from beginning to end (no pun intended). I found myself enjoying the storyline and not as much of the romance because it was very harsh for what I generally like to read. Imagine if Hook owned a bar and secretly sold “Pixie Dust” and got rid of anyone who lied to him or opposed him and suddenly your enemy (Peter) comes to town and its the perfect time to get your revenge. That is the entire real premise of the book with smut thrown in. Now I must note that there is a lot of trauma bonding and I would say inappropriate relationships because they are ultimately toxic, HOWEVER I’m here for the toxicity in book form. A lot of the decisions made by Hook and by Wendy in this book are aggravating and without reason but it did make for a good story. The twists in this book, the betrayals, and the lies had my jaw ON THE FLOOR! I felt through this story and nothing had me wanted to lay this book down (except for maybe the heavy smut scenes). This story never pulled punches and I felt every part of each line.

I think if you enjoy smut or can look past the smut then you will definitely find joy in the dark parts of this book. This is probably one of the more mob-boss stories I have read in a minute. There will be torture, abuse, death and assault in this story so definitely be aware of that. I am not sure if I will pick up the other ones because of the sexy scenes but I did love the dark and twisted imagination of this author as well as the “bad guy” not always losing.

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