3.75 ⭐️
This is daaark romance core, omg, all the red flag and definitely on the pitch black scale of how dark some of the themes are, so check those trigger warnings, there’s a whole page and half of them 🫠
I finished this early in the morning, slept on it, and honestly I needed to just take a moment and digest, process everything that happened. So, this is a stalker, captive romance (which I love) that follows Ivy and Killian. Ivy is out with her friends on a night out, and she then wakes up, to learn that she’s in an unfamiliar environment, essentially having been kidnapped.
In Killian’s povs, you learn more about what happened, how things potentially have gone wrong, and where things are currently— Ivy on the other hand is understandably freaking the fuck out, and honestly, I lost count the amount of times I genuinely thought that Killian was going to kill her (not intentionally), but with how he lived his life by a set of rules, discipline, he was very much set in his ways, oh and he’s a highly skilled assassin. It was crazy. It was so fucking insane; Killian is a psychopath, a murderer; he’s literally trained to kill, having been in the KBG for the past 15 years, he’s definitely up there with the MMCs I’ve read that have had a traumatic childhood and literally don’t know anything different than the very regimented lifestyle that they go by. He’s sadist and it was fucking crazy. I had goosebumps on my goosebumps pls!!
Listen the Stockholm Syndrome that Ivy experienced was CRAZY. I don’t know if because of that, the “romance” between Ivy and Killian felt secondary, almost like it wasn’t present; he is very much obsessed with her; I wasn’t overly sold on their chemistry, but things between them were intense. I’m hoping that in the second book, it’s explored, I’m very much intrigued to see where things go from how things ended, I was still wholly convinced that Killian hadn’t forgave Ivy for her reckless behaviour.
I’m always intrigued by the tortured mmc, especially if he’s on the antihero side, and very much so about what Killian had been through when he was with the KGB.
I think the plot definitely has a lot potential, I’m very much looking forward to what’s to come in the second book of this duology; but also did feel like it lacked in parts of its execution, and there was some pacing issues and clunkiness with some sentences/phrasing/writing that just felt like I needed to take a breath, or just random, didn’t flow well.
The spice was all the hot chilli peppers, my goodness me— check those triggers! 🥵🫠
Tropes
Dark romance
Hate to love
Stalker romance
Captive romance
Touch her and die