Cry Wolf

by S.L Gray

I roll into a dead Oregon town with a backpack, a body full of old damage, and a head that won’t shut up. I tell myself the work will help. Fix the house, keep my hands busy, keep the worst of me contained. The old man who hired me, we get along fine. The place is falling apart, so am I.
That’s when I meet Shadow.
She isn’t soft. She isn’t safe. She’s broken in ways I recognize immediately, like seeing your own reflection in a cracked mirror. What happens between us isn’t love. It’s sharp and reckless and built out of need. Survival, not hope.
I know better than to want her. She knows better than to trust me. Neither of us listens.
This isn’t a love story. No one gets saved. There’s no clean arc, no hero waiting at the end of it. Just two people dragging their damage into the same small space and calling it connection. It was wrong from the first breath, and we both knew it.
This story never leaves my head. You’re stuck in here with me. Shadow only speaks once—one break in the silence—but the spiral is mine. I go down alone.

Content No HEA. Trauma bonds. Violence. Addiction. Explicit scenes. Mental unraveling.

326 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 13, 2026

About the author

I’m S.L. Gray, a dark romance author based in the PNW. I write about love that sometimes hurts, characters who destroy and redeem, and the beauty found in all the wreckage.

Reviews

[itsjustjasz · Rating 5 out of 5]

6⭐️ PAINFULLY HEARTBREAKING, BEAUTIFULLY CRUEL, BRUTALLY RAW

This one hits deep. So deep it felt like it tore my heart right out of my chest. It wasn’t just another read. It was a full emotional journey. This book made me feel seen, heard and understood in a way only people who struggle like me would recognise. It almost felt like my own story was written through Atticus’s POV… only much darker. More tragic.

Honestly, I still can’t find the right words to capture how perfectly written this book is. It’s emotional. Tragic. Heartbreaking. Raw. Real.

It carries lessons most of us avoid or choose not to face. I can’t stress it enough but read it. Give it a chance. This book will break you but it will leave you with something meaningful. Something you’ll carry in your heart.

[Elixabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Plot/Spice/Tears/Violence-Gore-Action)
📚 5/5 - 🌶 3/5 - 💧4/0 - 🗡 2/5

I cried heavy tears reading this. It was so beautiful, and emotional. Atticus and Shadow are like oil and water, they want to mix, but just can't. He saved her, to try and calm the monster inside him. 😭 Someone who was just as broken as he was, the push and pull they kept doing ugh! I kept hoping she could fix him, but mental illness is too dark of a hole sometimes.

[Brenda Yager · Rating 4 out of 5]

Atticus is fighting his own demons and forces Shadow to be a part of it all; while trying to help her get clean. He’s unhinged, intense and also caring and obsessed with her and clearly not understanding why.

Atticus’s inner voice is loud and demanding. His past trauma’s surface but he’s not as awful as he claims to be.; or the inner voice says he is.

Gabe gives Atticus and in turn Shadow purpose and something to hope for while being mostly hands off.

Thank you to S.L. Gray for allowing me to have this as an ARC and being apart of her team.

[Lucy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cry Wolf by S.L. Gray [ARC REVIEW]
★★★★★
5/5 stars
Release date: January 15th, 2026

Turns out that knowing pain is coming isn't always enough to save you.

IF YOU LIKE:
• Pain (anguish, suffering, angst-)
• Unreliable narration
• Heavy themes
• TOXIC and flawed characters
• “Found family” but make it hurt
• Spice that’s as devastating as it is hot
YOU’LL LOVE Cry Wolf


≪ Sometimes I wondered if I’d ever been good. If maybe there had been a version of me that didn’t need to hurt something just to feel alive. I couldn’t picture him. Maybe he never existed. ≫

HIGHLIGHTS:
• Atticus
→ Atticus is possibly the most flawed protagonist I’ve ever had the pleasure (misfortune?) to read in 1st person. His narration is acidic, ice-cold, and sharp—like a rusted saw blade. He begins as a man on the brink of self-destructive nothingness and somehow, impossibly, manages to unravel even further. He is truly, utterly, painfully broken, and I don’t remember the last time I’ve been so frustrated with a character while simultaneously begging for him to let himself be happy. It is an exercise in anguish to stay in his mind, to watch him fulfill his own prophecies without being able to help him—or shake him, or save him from the cruelty of the voice in his head.
• Shadow
→ How can a girl with so much pain have so much hope? She tries, and she tries, and she tries. We get to watch her grow from a shattered thing in an alley that lets herself get abducted into a (marginally) healthy woman who can make the tough decisions that are right for her, even when it hurts. She is messy and complicated and horribly flawed, but she is also full of hope and light, and she keeps trying to get better even when it’s hard.
• The relationship
→ It’s so toxic. It’s so broken. It’s so doomed. Atticus does actually make Shadow better, but as she gets better he gets so much worse. They shatter each other and then the inescapable gravitational pull that keeps dragging them back together manages to hold their pieces in place. The peace they manage to find is stunningly beautiful and painfully fleeting; breathless moments of almost-acceptance between two toxic people who have never been whole and don’t think they deserve good things without pain. Even knowing it’s a tragedy, the romance is written so well that you can almost let yourself hope that they’ll figure it out. They are so, SO close to being happy—you can see it, just ahead of them—and then you’re forced to watch Atticus throw himself off the path as violently as he can. It’s horrible. It’s glorious. It’s a true, terrible interpersonal tragedy and I couldn’t look away.
• The weight of addiction
→ Addiction in Cry Wolf isn’t just a plot device or a character flaw: it’s a character in and of itself. It is the true antagonist, the monster under the bed, the darkness in the corner. It clings and infects and taints, dragging Shadow back into her name and preventing Atticus from believing in peace. Cry Wolf explores toxic cycles in an unflinching and beautiful way: never assigning blame but not shying away from the damage it causes.

≪ For a moment, just one small, fucked up, suspended breath in time, we weren’t monsters. We weren’t addicts or ghosts or broken things crawling out of our own wreckage. We were just two people in a room, letting the silence breathe for us. ≫

WISHLIST:
• A second version with an alternate ending
→ I know this is a tragedy. I was emotionally prepared for it. But the selfish, romantic part of me (that could so easily see a happy ending) desperately wishes there was a secret “good” ending that I could read to ease some of the soul-breaking, hope-crushing pain that this book made me feel. If you ever want to write a hopeful alternate ending - or even a bittersweet one, I’m not overly picky - I’ll eat it up and leave no crumbs.

≪ I kissed her like she was the last good thing in the world and I didn’t deserve any of it. ≫

--

*I received an Advance Review Copy of this book from the author

[Jes · Rating 4 out of 5]

If there’s one word to describe this book, it would be: painful. Cry Wolf is considered a dark romance but there is not an HEA. The hopeless romantic in me was grasping for one, but this book wouldn’t have made sense to end with a happily ever after. Does that take away from the quality and depth of this book? Absolutely not. I thoroughly enjoyed this book!

We stay in Atticus’ POV the entire book, so I can’t speak for Shadow (hopefully we get some bonus content from her POV 👀). Atticus and Shadow are broken individuals, to put it lightly, and gravitate towards each other. Atticus is not morally grey; he’s pitch black. He’s got nearly zero redeemable qualities, but was I rooting for him to be a hero the entire book? YEP. Atticus is tortured by a very unkind and hateful voice that lives inside his head, one who reminds him of how unworthy he is of love and anything good.
Shadow wanted nothing more than to lay down roots and grow with Atticus, despite his disdain and behavior towards her. I think they hated each other almost as much as they hated themselves.

Let’s be real on who the real star of the show is: Gabe. Gabe gives Atticus purpose but does not hand it to him on a silver platter. They work tirelessly on projects and develop (reluctantly) a bond while renovating a house from the ground up. Gabe was really special to me and he deserves the world PLUS some. He won me over with his no BS attitude.

The tropes included in this book:
- forced proximity
- enemies to lovers (heavy on the enemies)
- found family
- morally gray MMC
- hopeless FMC

I want to take a moment to say thank you to S. L. Gray for allowing me to read and review this before its release date! You knocked it out of the park babe! I’m looking forward to the next several you release 😉

[Evelyn Martinez · Rating 4 out of 5]

📖
Atticus just wants to go somewhere he can get his hands dirty and keep the inner voice low and quiet. Anything to make him feel, even if it's pain. Settled on fixing a house that's falling apart while moving to Oregan, he meets Shadow, a girl left to the streets. These are two broken people just surviving near other. A connection from the start that was never intended to blossom but rather burn.
📖


✨️ARC REVIEW✨️



Reading this will make you feel everything and nothing all at once.

Atticus' mind is so clouded by his own self  hate it actually made my mind feel blurry and consumed by anxiety. I don't mean that to turn you away from the book. No, it's chaotic, it's tragic in the most raw, real way. You yearn for more and are given an empty plate and told "make it enough" I was left wondering what just happened even though it was spilled out plain as day in front of me. Reading this will make you feel everything and nothing all at once.

Atticus feels like he doesn't deserve anything good in the slightest and reading that from his inner thoughts just...really makes you get a glimpse of how bad his mental health is effecting not only him, but, those around him.

The way he is so hard on himself is heartbreaking and it makes me want to reach into the book and hug him. Although I'm sure he refuse and push back.

Reading this story makes you crave just a tiny bit more. It's not enough and never will be. Part of you wants a happy ending but this is no hea. It never was intended to be that way. The spice was up there. The hate, through the roof. This was a great, sad, heartbreaking, detailed read. 

[MorallyDarkReadz · Rating 5 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

Cry Wolf absolutely grabbed me and did not let go. Atticus is unhinged and broken and so intense that I kept sitting there like okay sir relax but also please don’t. He is the definition of messed up man energy and I loved every second of it.

And her. The girl with all the ghosts in her eyes. The way she slips into his world and turns everything upside down had me obsessed. Their chemistry is wild. It is soft one minute and then dragging you into something dark the next. I ate it up.

This story feels like holding your breath and loving it. The trauma. The obsession. The tenderness hidden under all the ruin. I was hooked. Atticus spirals so beautifully and watching him choose her in his own twisted way made my little dark heart happy.

The spice was delicious and emotional and exactly what I wanted. I finished it in one sitting because I just had to see how their mess would unfold.

And just so you know this book does not give a HEA. It leaves you sitting there like… oh. okay. wow. But honestly it fits the story and the characters so perfectly that I didn’t even mind. It made the whole thing hit even harder.

If you love broken men who fall hard and girls who carry their own shadows this book will feed you. I loved it.

[CharliReadsSmut · Rating 4 out of 5]

𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐞 𝐦𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐈 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐧’𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝.

Some stories comfort you.
This one stays with you long after the last page, long after you wish it hadn’t ended that way.

It’s raw, emotionally heavy, and unafraid to hurt. There’s no neat resolution, no happy ending to soften the blow, just characters who feel real, choices that cost everything, and an ending that leaves you staring at the page in silence.

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴𝘯’𝘵 𝘢 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘦𝘯𝘫𝘰𝘺. 𝘐𝘵’𝘴 𝘢 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘷𝘦.

❝𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐚𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐝. 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐫𝐮𝐧 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐫𝐲.❞

This book was beautifully written. It was heart wrenching, heart breaking and felt so real, I forgot that I was reading.

This story is not for the faint hearted and it does not end in happy tears. Just fat, ugly, sad tears.

❝𝐈𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐮𝐬, 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐮𝐠𝐥𝐲 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐝. 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞. 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐥𝐮𝐬𝐭. 𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐡𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫.❞

I found this book both hard to read and hard to put down. It brings out raw, intense emotions and is easily relatable to moments we’ve not felt good enough. S. L. Gray was sensitive, real and tender.

🖤 Forced proximity
🖤 Mental health rep
🖤 Add!ction/recovery
🖤 Trauma bond
🖤 MMC POV only
🖤 K!dnapping
🖤 Mental instability
🖤 ‘I can save you’
🖤 ‘I can’t be saved’

⭐️ 4/5
🌶️ 3/5

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m not even sure where to begin with Cry Wolf. S.L. Gray has written a dark romance that is as heartbreaking as it is intense. While the setting is gritty and dangerous, it’s the raw, emotional core of this story that really destroyed me in the best way possible. There are moments in this book that are genuinely soul-crushing you can feel the pain and the desperation of these characters as they try to find a way to be together in a world that wants to tear them apart. The chemistry is electric, but it’s the emotional stakes that kept me turning the pages until 3 AM. It’s a story about trauma, survival, and a love that feels both inevitable and impossible. If you want a book that will make you cry just as much as it makes your heart race, this is the one. I am completely shattered and obsessed.

[Nix · Rating 3 out of 5]

dark no HEA

⭐️⭐️⭐️
🌶️

This was a very dark take from this author. I love her work and her ability to develop characters

This book has had me in all the feels. The first 2/3 of the book I wasn’t feeling it to be honest. Atticus fighting his demons back and forth and back and forth, I kept waiting for the revelation

But that’s what makes this so dark there was no revelation there was no resolution def no HEA I do wish for a Shadow update I worried about her