Bait

by Adriana Herrera

Alma Corvado has spent all her twenty-nine years believing there was no world beyond the bunker she’d always called home. Bound by duty and the fickle whims of the council she has only ever indulged in one simple rebellion.

When her act of defiance finds her being pushed out into the dangers of the outside, she discovers that the world never ended.

When she’s rescued from the clutches of dangerous raiders by the two people she thought were lost to her forever, Alma must confront the truth. Everything she thought she knew about the end of the world was a lie.

Genres: Romance, Dystopia, Novella, Adult, Science Fiction, Short Stories, Audiobook

142 pages, ebook

First published October 7, 2025

About the author

USA Today bestselling author ADRIANA HERRERA was born and raised in the Caribbean, but for the last 15 years has let her job (and her spouse) take her all over the world. She loves writing stories about people who look and sound like her people, getting unapologetic happy endings.

Her debut Dreamers, has been featured on Entertainment Weekly, NPR, the TODAY Show on NBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Oprah Magazine.

When she's not dreaming up love stories, planning logistically complex vacations with her family or hunting for discount Broadway tickets, she’s a social worker in New York City, working with survivors of domestic and sexual violence.

Reviews

[vaishnavi ☆ﾟ⁠.⁠*]

well... the reviews were bad for a reason 😭 that man on the cover looks like he doesn't want to be there and I relate.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

After the End collection:
⤹ first by ali hazelwood °‧ 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 ·｡‎ [2.5 ⭐]
⤹ bait by adriana herrera [1 ⭐] dnf
⤹ skyn by nikki payne ‧₊˚✧🪩✧˚₊‧ [2.5 ⭐]
⤹ m.a.y.a. by nina saxena ˙✧˖°🐺 ༘ ⋆｡˚ [0.5 ⭐]
⤹ brood by claire kent . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. [1 ⭐]
⤹ taken by elizabeth stephens .𖥔 ݁ ˖ ϟ ⚡︎ ϟ ˖ ݁ 𖥔. [0.5 ⭐] dnf
⤹ trade by cate c. wells ˚˖𓍢ִ໋`🌿:✧˚⋆𖧧 [3.5 ⭐]
⤹ prima by sherry thomas ⊹ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ˖ [2 ⭐]

[Flora (Helia's version)]

I did not spend my money on this 🧍‍♀️

[veerali]

just a bunch of horny people doing horny things.

[m]

Damn, I really wanted to enjoy this, but the amount of issues is hard to ignore. :(. It had the bones of a great novella, but it read as a rough first draft. I especially wish there had been a deeper connection between the characters. It felt rushed but like nothing was going on at the same time. Of course, the story only takes place through a couple of days, but some of the dialogue and scenes with side characters could have been used to show the bond they shared. And Alma’s idea/plan could have been a bigger plot point in my opinion. Things were sort of left in the air at the end. Maybe the story would have worked better as a full novel instead. Also, there were many grammatical errors that bothered me so much. I think the whole process of making this book was rushed. Hopefully the physical books being shipped next year go through another revision after the feedback on the ebooks. There were also some contradictions in the day count in the first and last chapter, which I wonder if they were intentional or not?

[dak]

it’s giving fallout but make it very horny

[Lyv ˚♡˚]

I genuinely thought my bisexual ass was about to ADORE this. Instead, reading this felt like needing to vomit while actively shitting yourself. A harrowing experience. Alma drove me up the wall almost immediately, and she never recovered. Her decisions made no sense, her personality grated on me, and I could not understand why two people were apparently willing to wait years for her ass. There was no emotional hook, just vibes I actively disliked.

The spice was bad. Like really bad. Awkward, clunky, zero tension, zero payoff. It read like an unedited draft where someone said “add sex” and then forgot to make it hot. It desperately needed an editor, or at least a second pass by anyone with functioning taste. Valeria should have been a guaranteed hit for me, but somehow managed to be a complete turn off, and I resent the hell out of that.

And Torch. My god. First of all, that name is stupid when the other two main characters are Alma and Valeria. Second, have you seen the cover? He looks ugly and depressed, which tracks perfectly with one, how I felt reading this book and two, how he actually behaves in it. His emotions flip flop constantly, his attitude is exhausting, and there was nothing remotely attractive about him. I kept hoping he’d improve. He did not.

I am begging the universe for the next book in this series to be better, because if not, I have truly wasted both my time and my money. This was not dark. It was not sexy. It was just miserable.

[Nenia Campbell]

Alma used to believe in their society but when they started implementing mandatory breeding programs for everyone who was sixteen and up and took away public access to the libraries, she started to think that maybe their society was getting worse-- not better. As part of her rebellion, she started sneaking birth control pills to women who were being predated on by the council, so they could stall their cycles and buy themselves time, but one of her so-called peers ratted her out and Alma is violently exiled, sold out as prey for the above-world renegades to hunt in exchange for supplies.

After meeting an almost-terrifying end, she is reunited with two people she cares about that she thought she'd never see again: Torch and Candela. Both of them also used to live in the bunker before they too were made to leave, and Alma had romantic feelings for both of them at one point. Now she wants them both and it seems like they want her too, but in a society slowly raising itself up from the ash that still resides in somewhat of a power vacuum, Alma wonders how much time she really has for romance.

Some readers have complained about how smutty this book was but it wasn't actually that much smuttier than any of the other books in this collection, in my opinion. I feel like BROOD and TRADE had similar amounts, the only difference is that this book has a queer MFF why choose at its core. Alma mentions at one point that she was taking pills to suppress her own sexuality so to me it felt like this story was both a rebound effect, and a chance to fully explore her pansexuality free of the homophobic constraints of the bunker society. My only complaint is that the three of them didn't burn the bunker down and liberate the others, with a violent display of "touch her and die"-esque on-page vengeance.

But I guess I read too many dark romances LOL.

3.5 stars

[˚₊꒰ა Jii ໒꒱₊˚ (catching up)]

˚₊ ⟢┊pre-read 🖇️┊⊹࣪⋆

I'm seeing the reviews, and I'm not looking forward to it, still we ball!😮‍💨

╴╴⊹ꮺ˚ After the End Collection ╴⊹˚ ╴╴
⟢ ♯01 ∼ first 🩹 ꒰ ✩ ꒱
⟢ ♯02 ∼ bait 🔥 ꒰ ✩ ꒱
⟢ ♯03 ∼ skyn 🦾 ꒰ ✩ ꒱
⟢ ♯04 ∼ m.a.y.a. 🐺 ꒰ ✩ ꒱
⟢ ♯05 ∼ brood 🤍 ꒰ ✩ ꒱
⟢ ♯06 ∼ taken 🫟꒰ ✩ ꒱
⟢ ♯07 ∼ trade 🍃 ꒰ ✩ ꒱
⟢ ♯08 ∼ prima 🌊 ꒰ ✩ ꒱
─ ⟢・⸝⸝ Overall rating ~ stars pending…. ☆ .ᐟ ─

[Megan Ashbrenner]

hire an editor i’m BEGGING

[bree | breesbookmark ♡]

Look, I didn't hate it!! But it felt like the author started off writing a really fun, potentially action-packed dystopian bunker story that was abandoned halfway through for erotica. Which is fine!! It was fun!! But I wish the rest of the story was resolved? Idk!

[Anne 'E']

Skimmed at the end. A novella should not be skimmed.

[Bethany (Beautifully Bookish Bethany)]

A dystopian polyamorous erotic novella. Really what's not to love?

[Shannon]

“We can’t just go and knock on the door of the bunker.” Bitch you 100% CAN take down a handful of septuagenarians controlling a bunker, they literally announce when they’re opening the door and you have people on the inside.

“We don’t want to do something that will end with people hurt or worse.” Worse, like women being literally controlled and r*ped for 30 years, like I’m sure they’d be ok with the mild disruption of being rescued???

“My soulmates” GIRL you literally kissed one of them one time 10 years ago, and thought the other hated you not 48 hours ago??

Apparent side effects of the Burst include people not having two brain cells to rub together.

The concept of Alma secretly subverting the bunker overlords and the ppl on the outside planning a coup, that is a solid premise for a story, but it went downhill fast.

[Marnaysha Jean-François]

An entire team read this and said yeah let's publish this?

[Paloma FC (in my reading era)]

3.5 / 5 ⭐
3.5 / 5 🌶️
FMC POV 👀
Spicy chapters: 4, 6, 8, 9,11,12 🔥
Torch (MMC); Candela and Alma (FMC's)

This Silo-like novella is both interesting and HOT 🔥.
I personally really enjoy post apocalyptic stories, so this one was right up my alley.

There's A LOT going on, plot wise. So I was thoroughly entertained.

Happy reading 📚

[Sam]

minus the terrible nicknames im having A LOT OF FUN this makes me feel like the middle school dystopian superfan i was i don’t know why i ever left her behind

[ari ⁠♡]

finishing this just for the sake of the series

[Liz | lizzuplans]

Wool / Silo with a sprinkle of Mad Max. And a bad copy at that.

I perhaps should not continue with dystopian or post-apocalyptic stories, but again the (threat of) sexual violence really put me off.

Noticed grammatical and spelling errors in this final book. Not great.

[Hillary (abookishmarriage)]

Continue not perceiving me

[Brooklyn Ramsay]

ebook:
i dig this. a bit clunky at times, but i think if it was fully fleshed out it would be just wonderful.

Audio:
the story was good. but i could not keep it together for the smut. goofy ash

physical copy:
i really do love these characters. it’s a lot more digestible when i have it on paper. i think if i had more time to appreciate the dynamics between candela, torch, and alma, id absolutely adore this. alas, it is only a novella.

[Talia]

I’m starting to have major regrets on buying this series. This was just bad?? The premise she was going for needed be in a longer book and not a novella- felt very half done because of that. Too many nicknames, spice was fine but lacked sparks.

[Eden]

This gave me The 100 vibes with the “end of the world bunker and people lying about the viability of Earth” situation. The fmc was great at first but then very much became a passenger princess in a semi-annoying way. I really wish her past relationships with the two MCs had been explained better beforehand. I felt like I was playing catch up. But at the same time, I had fun with this. It was exciting, it was smutty, and what more do you need, really? Overall, I think I liked it.

[Kait]

2.5 rounded up

“We were a knot of limbs and sweaty skin, and I hoped we would continue to be for a long, long time.”

Wowowow this simultaneously tried to do WAY too much and also hyper focused on the MCs’ horniness for one another.

What I liked: the social commentary and the spice.

Listen, Herrera knows how to write good spice. The multitude of scenes were plenty and hot!!!! The story's bones also were interesting and highly relevant. I'd be willing to return to this world b/c I wanted to spend more time in it....

What i didn’t like: everything else.

The short timeline didn’t help this bc I couldn’t buy into the feelings. This whole time i kept saying, “girl what?! You just found out your whole life is a lie and these people you thought were dead aren’t and you’re just…horny?!” Like Alma went from this character who was fighting back against unfair reproductive health rules to...being horny.

Similarly, the emotional core of the relationship relies on the characters’ history with one another. We’re thrown in and just expected to believe the love in both directions? We barely spend time with torch and all we know is Alma found him attractive. That’s it! I can buy into Cande a bit more given their history but only a very little bit.

There was SO much going on that it felt like very little got properly fleshed out. So many things (eg Torch speaking Spanish, Alma being on suppressors) got mentioned only in passing. I think the suppressants were supposed to explain why she was so horny all the time but there was no shape to them. It wasn't ABO and they were basically birth control and it still doesn't explain things.

The ending was the most egregious example. Like they make plans to go back for the others. There’s a major reveal. And then..:it just ends. With a short epilogue that doesn’t really close out any of the loose ends.

And I'm pretty sure i wasn’t supposed to bust out laughing at the conclusion. 😬 (Which i once again guessed. I don’t like this! I like being shocked by the twist ok?!)

Overall this felt a bit conflicted on what it was trying to do and be. This either needed to be a full length novel (which i would read but with a much stronger line editor) or it needed a much stronger dev edit to tighten and balance it as a novella.

CNs
-Moderate: Gore, Gun violence
-Minor: Homophobia, Sexual violence

[GigiReads]

Alma gets kicked out of the bunker she's lived in her whole life after volcano ash covered the earth and sent humans underground. On the outside she discovers it was mostly a lie. Earth has slowly recovered and old friends she thought were dead are very much alive. This is where the story goes seriously astray.First Alma's personality changes to Horny Woman is Horny, every other thought is her getting laid by her two hot friends. I don't mind this but the result was that there was no romance only horny thoughts. I had no idea why these three stayed together at the end. The set up and the first half were great. But there was just too much plot for a novella length story. The result was that nothing got resolved and the romance was non-existent. Also, I love me a nickname but Brains and Sass? Atrocious.

I'd read another book set in this world though.

⭐⭐.5
🔥🔥🔥/5

Tropes:
Close Proximity
Friends to Lovers

[Christi]

Dystopian novella part of After the End kickstarter collection, this series has sadly not been the best. Overall my favorites have been the Claire Kent and Cate C Wells novellas and everything else has been such a miss. But I backed the ebooks for this project so best believe I’ll try them all.

Like a couple others in this collection, this one starts off fun and had me intrigued the first 20% but then quickly fizzled out and lost me. The tropes for this one: dystopian romance, road trip, second chance. The main character in this one is living in an underground bunker in former-New Mexico, living above ground became a no-go over 20 years ago after volcanic eruptions, lava floods, acid rain, and ash clouds covering over 70% of earth’s surface. Life above ground is extremely dangerous and I did like all the underground bunker updates/news info released in the start of the book over the first 20 years of bunker life.

Like many of the others in this collection, characters quickly realize not everything they’ve been told is true and once they’re released/sent out to the surface they run into an old friend or two. This is when the plot lost it and I no longer cared because everybody was just horny instead. Meh.

[Tisa]

Guys, this is so bad 🫣

By chapter 2 there are already SEVERAL typos! How did this pass? I’ve already read 3 out of the 8 After the End books and no other book has this issue.

There’s also this sudden switch about feelings on a main character during the 1st chapter alone…how was this arc mapped out?

This is a no.

[Merry Jayned]

I really loved the entire beginning... the other half was eh... I really really wanted to like this one. Everything was just too rushed a neatly wrapped at the end.

[Jess | jadecanread]

I'm underwhelmed. I understand that you can only do so much in a novella, but I just wasn't engaged, interested, or entertained that much.

I do love a FFM moment, and the attempt was there, but you lose me when 1 of the 3 is just a bystander with a hard dick lol.

Kinda cute ending though, I'll give it to them.

[Mary]

There were a lot of spelling and editing mistakes that need fixed. I counted at least 6 of them. Considering this author is one of the main creators of this collection, I was very disappointed. Honestly, it felt like the first unedited draft of a story, not a published work.

I didn’t particularly love any of the characters, the main character was a little annoying. I would’ve liked for the romance and characters to be more developed. I know it’s a novella, but more of a backstory of their relationships or even feeling more depth between the characters would’ve been nice. It was definitely insta lust and not in a good way. By the end, Alma called them her soulmates but I didn’t feel like there was anything particularly romantic between them. Maybe if the story was more developed, but I think this author might be a miss for me.

I also don’t understand why the book is called Bait and I do think the summary is a little misleading.

[books2loversss]

The first half of this was amazing. Sign me up for books with gritty bunker life, and main characters taking huge risks to do what they can for the people around them.

Problem was, the plot died off as soon as Alma reunited with Candela and Torch, and the novella ended with so many unanswered questions. Even if I’d known to expect a series here, I’d still be frustrated with the lack of plot development. If the world is going to be so rich and compelling in the beginning, I need that to continue.

Also, minor issue, but I would like to file a complaint against the nicknames. Sass and Brains did not do it for me.