Reviews with content warning for Infidelity - Uncino

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.

Content Warnings

lizzysk555's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.5

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eurynome's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced

4.0

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jordyyy101's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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meganlaza's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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savage_book_review's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I read this series of books last year (and reviews were posted at the time), but recently found the first four were available as audiobooks as part of my Audible subscription. However, they're being removed in a couple of weeks, so I want to try and get them listened to before then!

The audio version definitely adds a level to the story in bringing it to life, especially where you have a male narrator reading James' chapters and a female narrator reading Wendy's chapters. However, I still cannot understand why you would hire two narrators for that purpose, and then not have them speak the appropriate lines in the other person's chapter (I.e. have the male read James' speech within Wendy's chapters and vice versa). They don't do badly at putting on the opposite voices, but it just grates on my nerves!

I was less convinced by the voices/accents employed for the secondary characters - the male narrator had an especially tough job given that he's a Brit and most of the secondary characters Americans. I couldn't tell you whether the accent was right for the setting (Brit here), but it was quite harsh and didn't necessarily suit the narrators' natural tone of voice. But equally they managed to bring each character to life throughout with different voices for each and, for the most part, they didn't wander too much.

There were a couple of places where I felt the narrators could have 'acted' a bit more to get the point across, but generally it was a very enjoyable listen.

Content Warnings

filipa_maia's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

So, this was my first dark romance / smut read, and although this is not my preferred genre, I did appreciate this book.

The characters are complex, with a background that really explains where they are now, they have good arcs, and overall this book has a decent plot. I predicted part of the final plot, but not all, so I still got surprised.

Mostly, I liked the fact that Wendy wasn't completely removed from managing her own life - okay, maybe after what happened she didn't have much of a choice, but still.

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