After the End: A Dystopian Romance Collection Volumes 1-4

by Ali Hazelwood, Adriana Herrera, Nikki Payne

FIRST by Ali Hazelwood

A general plans to use a nobleman's bride to teach him a lesson. After meeting her, he decides to keep her for himself.

Content notes/ ableism, blood, death of secondary characters, dubious consent, infertility, violence
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.

Content notes/ death of a parent, death of a secondary character, gun violence, physical violence
SKYN by Nikki Payne

When Fawl's ex dumps her for her stepsister, she takes the messiest deal dig up dirt on an Elite family for a golden ticket out of the Underground. Simple, right? No. Now she's somehow *Checks Notes* married to an emotionless machine who's weirdly obsessed with her skin.

Content notes/ extreme body modification, hints of cannibalism, intercourse in an altered state
M.A.Y.A. by Nina Saxena

In an effort to escape a war-torn dystopian planet where she would be used as a weapon to hurt innocent people, MAYA searches for a way to stop her captors by fleeing through one of six dimensions in a hidden bunker. There, she meets a pack of shifters and an alpha determined to claim her as his fated mate.

Content notes/ medical PTSD, torture

Genres: Romance, Fantasy, Audiobook, Dystopia, Short Stories, Romantasy

663 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 28, 2026

About the author

I'm Ali, and I write contemporary romcom novels about women in STEM and academia. I love cats, Nutella, and side ponytails. I'm also currently learning to crochet, so as you can tell I'm a super busy gal with an intense and exciting life!

I only use Goodreads as a reader, to review and hype books that I've loved (many of these book are ARCs received from fellow authors).

Reviews

[Paloma FC (in my reading era)]

First
By: Ali Hazelwood

4 / 5 ⭐
3.5 / 5 🌶️
Dual POV 👀
Spicy chapters: 18, 22 🔥
Gabriel (MMC) and Sofia (FMC)

I appreciate the author's effort when writing the world building and the s*xual tension between the MC's. These two elements were in my opinion the best part of the book 🙌.

The MMC is a dominant, very experienced, general aplha, while the FMC is an virginal healer with no experience and pretty oblivious about everything happening around her. Is it cliché? Yes. 🙄
Did I enjoy the book anyway? Absolutely.

I personally didn't l like that when the MC's finally f*ck, they do it in front of the unwilling audience of the FMC's previous mate, who is also whimpering in pain after being tortured. Even if the FMC's mate/ex deceived her, I do not think that it was necessary in any way, shape or form to include his participation. Especially when it seemed that the MMC was focusing WAY more on torturing the ex and speaking to him, than the FMC. I don't find this particularly hot, charming, or sexy... more like the opposite 🤮🤢😮‍💨.

But overall I was thoroughly entertained. So 4 stars ⭐️.

Happy reading 📚

---

Bait
By: Adriana Herrera

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

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 buckle up and enjoy!

Happy reading 📚

---

Skyn
By: Nikki Payne

4.5 / 5 ⭐
3.5 / 5 🌶️
FMC POV 👀
Spicy chapters: 16, 18, 19, 20, 23 🔥
Ben (MMC) and Fawl (FMC)

I adore the MCs in this story: Ben, he's such a strong, kind sweetheart who is 85% robot. And Fawl is an unaltered, smart, badass woman who fights for what's right.

This book is very well written, the story is sooooo engaging and entertaining.
Even though this is a short novella, there's an intricate story and the characters have plenty of emotional depth. I highly recommend this one. The spice is also delicious and HOT 🔥 🌶.

Happy reading 📚

----

M.A.Y.A
By: Nina Saxena

2.5 / 5 ⭐
3 / 5 🌶️
Third Person POV 👀
Spicy chapters: 7, 8, 9, 13, 🔥
Isaiah (MMC) and Maya (FMC)

This book wasn't terrible, just not my personal cup of tea.
But if you are into the story of a wolf 🐺 shifter MMC and half human / half Android 🤖 FMC, perhaps this one might be for you 🤷🏼‍♀️.

Happy reading! 📚

[Hayley]

The first book by Hazelwood was brilliant, as hers often are. 4*

The second book I abandoned 5 chapters in. 1*.

The third book I dragged myself to complete with frustration - between an MC who doesn’t understand when the vibe in a room changes and an author who doesn’t properly describe/explain scenes/lore/subtext so you’re never quite sure what is going on, it wasn’t worth the energy of trying to figure out what’s happening in order to enjoy finish the story. I don’t think I’ll read anymore by Payne. 2*.

The fourth book I abandoned on chapter two. It had serious fanfic-written-by-a-teenager-vibes, with cliche dialogue that was ridiculous unrealistic, aimed at giving information to the reader (“No leader, even though you’re the youngest and stronger leader we’ve ever seen, it doesn’t mean you can defeat the thing that no one else has ever defeated in our entire history!” And that’s not a direct quote but really fucking close). 1*

Only thing worth reading was Hazelwood.

[Lindsay Olivera]

This is what I imagine a teenage boy to write

[Sophie]

Ali, I adore you, but respectfully, what the fuck were you thinking?

Are we just all going to look over the fact that he was okay with raping her?!?

PS: I only read First. I have zero interest in the others.

[Cyd Zach]

Tell me how EVERY SINGLE ONE of those short stories were omegaverse. I knew going into it Ali Hazelwood was freaky and she would write an omegaverse story, but All of them? Damn? Im actually impressed as to how all of them were subtle omegaverse.

[Amanda]

I'm averaging this collection to a four star. Even though I didn't have the first one the other three were quality and I really enjoyed them.

Ratings in order , - dnf , 4 ⭐, 5⭐, 5⭐

[GigiReads]

First
I really enjoyed this, which is not much of a surprise as I tend to enjoy Ali Hazelwood’s writing. It was amazing how much world building was done in a few short chapters and while there were areas that could have been expanded (the gap between hate and love/ devotion in particular could have done with at least another chapter and scenes showing the softening stances when they were together) and explained with more detail but I suppose that’s sort of the point.

The MMC was a bit of a departure for Hazelwood, in a way and the omega-verse setting worked better than I expected, especially when combining the evolution of the presentation into the dystopian setting.
4 ⭐️

Bait
I loved the premise of this, the idea to start with the bulletins was a great one and it really helped get you into the world. I started to lose interest when the second part of the story started. It’s a common complaint in romance novels but the repeating over and over again how sexually attracted you are to a person during a life of death situation is jarring and took me out of the narrative. Much like when a seemingly rational (up to that point) character starts cutting off their nose to spite their face when confronted with someone not welcoming them with open arms even though they had all the reason in the world for their (supposed) hostility.

The overuse of pretty crap nicknames got old fast and there was so much character work that was missed. Especially when you go from the last chapter to the epilogue without the conversation you are expecting to happen next.

There were also a surprising amount of errors in the text.

I still think this could be reworked into something great if the first part of the story was expanded.
2.5 ⭐️

Skyn
This was another great premise and I do love a FMC who is treated poorly by her family suddenly coming out on top - literally in this case.

There was a bit too much plot for a novella here and because of that somethings were a bit rushed and confused. The suspense didn’t really land the way it should have done as there was too much built up to have been surprised.

There was a lot of good stuff here but it could have done with being slowed down and trimmed down.
3 ⭐️

M.A.Y.A.
This one was very different to the others and the idea of merging robotics into people (though it was featured in the last story) was approached in a very different way.

The plot wasn’t really for me, through no fault of the story, I just wasn’t that engaged by it.
3⭐️

[Samantha Vargas]

So it is a bit hard to rate this as a whole book since the mini novellas are written so differently by different authors, so I’ll give a breakdown.

FIRST- This was the whole reason I was reading this book. I love Hazelwood’s writing and her ability to create chemistry between characters. She didn’t disappoint here. The romance Gabriel and Sophia was one of passion and protection. And the “spicy” scenes were a bit dark and sexy, which was perfect for their story. 4.5/5 stars- I wish they had more time to explore their connection.

BAIT- This was my first exposure to Adriana Herrera’s writing, but it definitely won’t be my last. I LOVED this story and wanted to read it more and more. The plot made sense, while building up the sexual tension between the three main characters. While the “spicy” scenes were nothing short of spectacular, it wasn’t the main reason for loving this book. Alma is a great narrator with a unique point of view that makes you not only sympathetic to her character, but makes you want to be her friend and ally. I truly want to read more stories like this one. 5/5 stars!

SKYN- I had a feeling this would not be my favorite one of the novellas just from the concept alone. I was pleasantly surprised I liked any part of this book since the idea of glorifying the mutilating of our bodies into cyborgs is just so creepy my opinion. That said, there were parts of this novella where you don’t even remember that some of the characters aren’t fully human. There is a very compelling plot and you do want to root for the two main characters to be happy. All that said, while I liked the writing, the concepts were a bit far-fetched for me to relate to and it just didn’t fit with the vibe of the rest of the series. 3/5 stars.

M.A.Y.A- I was also skeptical about if I would like this book since it too addresses cyborgs, but I was so wrong. I really did love this story. It felt like a great way to tie some of the other stories together in that it was using similar concepts from FIRST, but also had the cyborg piece and an alternate dimension twist that was unique. This too was my first exposure to Nina Saxena’s work, but I hope it isn’t my last. Her writing built so much chemistry and had such interesting and unique characters, that it kept me intrigued the whole time. I wish we had more time to explore their “Happily Ever After.” 4.5/5 stars.

[Chantal]

Overall 4.5 out of 5 novellas all together: First by Ali Hazelwood, Rating 4: The positives I loved Gabriel's pack and how they supported and bantered with each other. I loved Sofia's (sp? audio book problems) her unwillingness to back down. Her care for others being a medic. Also the epilogue was sweet and the spice was yummy. I did see part of the plot twist coming and when the male narrator wasn't being spicy his voice was a bit monotone and flat.

Bait by Adrianna Herrera Rating 5: The amount of queer love in this was every way perfection along with the amount of chemistry and banter with this why choose trio. The spice was some of my favorite. The setting was so vivid and one of my biggest fears which is why I don't read much dystopia.

Skyn By Nikki Payne 4:

This dystopic society I think scared me most, though the society did remind me a bit of the movie, "In Time". The less than and the ones that held power. Fawl's comparing of Ben to her ex while understandable with her trauma did get a bit repetitive. I loved the importance of touch and playing the part the others letting them assume before you can make your move. I did love the spice especially Ben's greediness for Fawl.

M.A.Y.A. by Nina Sai 4.75: I loved Isiah's pack the banter between them and when they got to know Maya was everything. I loved the honesty and truth that comes from Maya's medical trauma and Isiah's patience with it was everything. Also the banter and spice for them was everything I just cringed at some of the word's for anatomy as well as the nicknames were fun too.

[KML]

Definite yes to First, soft yes to Skyn , hated Bait

It’s hard to rate this book because my rating varies dramatically for each story.

First 4.5 stars
Loved this story. Hazelwood does such a great job, establishing chemistry and connection between characters no matter the duration of the book.

Bait 2 stars
I really disliked the story. I didn’t care for any of the main characters and given that there are three of them you would think I would like at least one. I felt no genuine connection or chemistry between any of them and didn’t care for their dynamic. And a certain point it just felt like the author was trying to write taboo sex scenes. This is a novella so when you pile in that many sex scenes naturally I feel like the plot suffers.

Skin 3.5 stars
I was fascinated by this story. And the world concept in general. I didn’t love all of it hence only 3.5 stars, but I’d like to know that I might pick up a book by this author at some point. This was the first time I’ve read anything by this author.

M.A.Y.A. DNF for now
I started this one and just wasn’t interested. At that point I had already gone through three other dystopian stories and it may have been a combo of not being immediately gripped by the story and just not feeling like jumping into another dystopian story at that point.

[Joanna]

Not for me

The third story was the best, but they were all too ridiculous. Instalove/lust. No build up. Intimate moments were more disturbing than anything

Spoilers



The MMC in the first book was going to force himself on someone else's new bride. (Think Braveheart) But hey, she enjoyed it... so it's all good, right? Then what he forced her to do in the last scene was so awful she should have been traumatized.

The second book's FMC was incredibly annoying. Triads/thruples aren't the issue, it was the voyeurism, attitudes, and the overall way they treated each other, especially only hours after she went through such a traumatic experience. There was so much wrong with this story. Shame on the mother for leaving her daughter trapped in a cult where the young girls are drugged, gang#####, and bred by old men.

The third book was good, but again, the timeline was way too short

The fourth book just kept repeating itself over and over, and was quite boring. It also had an unbelievable solution. The antagonists were able to conquer six worlds, and are threatening a seventh. But they apparently don't have the resources to move the rubble of a single building. How are we supposed to believe they were any threat at all?

[The Reading Mitten]

I was SUPER excited to find these available on Kindle Unlimited I wasn’t overly wowed by them as I thought. With the slight exception of Ali Hazelwood, of course.

Her story, First, had a lot of the elements I was excepting for a dystopian romance! I enjoyed the change to human DNA and the class system in place being so skewed. The jobs were interesting as were some of the more “surprise” plot points! I was a little shook by the ending actions of the fmc and mmc but to each their own 😂😂

I skipped Bait bc it just didn’t seem up my alley!
SKYN really had me hooked and then kinda lost me a little 🤷🏼‍♀️
M.A.Y.A. Lured me in with werewolves and then dropped me off bc the writing style just didn’t vibe with me!

I was planning to check out the final few books in the series but I put that on hold since these didn’t suck me in as much as I thought! Maybe later I’ll give em a shot

[Lindsey Foltyn]

It's not that the premises of any of the stories were bad, or that I don't like dystopian fiction. I'm a millennial, of course I do. I'll even accept that some writing styles aren't my taste so long as the story is good enough to get me hooked.

I am going to have a problem when you use the wrong name for characters during a scene, or when the typos are extra-egregious or excessive (not judging independent authors for that, I'll let a lot slide)...or when you write a sentence in your story that literally does not make any sense. There was one, I won't say which, that I read three times, took a screenshot of, and sent to a friend to see if I just wasn't getting it.

Mid execution of a good idea, I can be flexible. Poor execution that includes the above? I can't.

Especially disappointing when it came from popular authors who have trad publishing deals.

[Daianny Lima]

Livro composto de 4 contos de distopia focado no Romance de diferentes autores. Apenas li o primeiro conto (First) da Ali Hazewoold.

O foco aqui é o romance como tem sido nos últimos livros dela. Wordbuilding super interessante, mas como ela não desenvolve direito o leitor tem dificuldade em fazer uma imagem mental dos cenários e daquela realidade pós-apocalíptica.

O plot do "Direito da primeira noite" é bizarro, assim como o final do conto. Não me apaguei a nenhum dos personagens. A química do casal principal é bem genérica (naquele estilo omegaverso de sempre, "bem de fórmula).

No começo senti MUITA dificuldade nos termos em inglês que são muito específicos. Mas depois a leitura fluiu.

Enfim...

Esperava muito mais.

[Meitachi]

With the caveat that these are short stories, this was an interesting collection of post apocalyptic stories. Personal ratings, respectively:

3.5 star - Typical fun Ali Hazelwood writing, kinda annoyed with how subservient the FMC was. So many times, she was "This is the situation I'm in, I guess I don't really object to being treated poorly or threatened" attitude.

DNF'd Bait about 2/3rds in. Not my cuppa.

Skyn - 3.75 stars

M.A.Y.A - 4 stars. Love the AAPI representation! Prob my favorite one out of the series. I think this one is better on audiobook over reading. Not the most complex writing but it's entertaining and that's what I'm here for.

[Kaitlin]

*DISCLAIMER: I only read “First”*

For a novella this was kind of amazing. My main complaint (as usual) is wishing it was longer but I had a great time! While I didn’t mind the shock factor at the end at all I do kind of wish we had gotten one scene without that (iykyk) and then one scene with it idk I was really looking forward to the romance aspect of that moment 🥲 I say this for every single Ali Hazelwood review but truly no one writes men the way she does and the way her MMCs speak about their love interests is unmatched

[|Stephanie|]

"Maybe that's all you can really ask for in the end-not certainty, not perfection, but someone to stand beside you when the world falls apart." -Nikki Payne, SKYN

Despite book one, First by Ali Hazelwood being a DNF I really enjoyed the remaining three in the AFTER THE END collection. I'm breaking down my ratings but overall giving this 4 stars!

1. First Ali Hazelwood: DNF

2. Bait Adriana Herrera: 4 stars!

3. Skyn Nikki Payne: 3.5 stars!

4. M.A.Y.A. Nina Saxena: 4 stars!

[Eden]

First by Ali Hazelwood - 3.5-4 stars
Bait by Adriana Herrera - 3.5 stars
SKYN by Nikki Payne - 3 stars
M.A.Y.A. by Nina Saxena- 4 stars

Overall this collection needed another pass with editors because there were a lot of typos. Glad I was only reading this via KU because I would have been upset to spend a bunch of money on this and it gave errors like that. Definitely some diversity of ideas of what the apocalypse would end up looking like. Sad that men being horrible, corrupt, and controlling just sticks around.

[Allison Mann]

Half way through. These are spicy* little dystopian novellas. Jumped in bc I love all things AH and get novella (the first one) does not disappoint in terms of the science talk and spice/tension.
Enjoyed the next novella but maybe not quite so much up my alley - also, every time they talked about “the bunker” I thought back to that “Fallout” show, which was great. Character connections were pretty thin, even for a novella, but if you are looking for a poly-spicy dystopian story, that one’s for you.

[Milena Freddi]

Unfortunately I don't think I'm the target audience for this kind of collection.
As an Ali fan I couldn't not read her novella, but I must say I really dragged my feet along the way. I loved her writing, as always, but the character dynamics and their development wasn't really for me.
I did try to finish bait because I really love a good dystopic book, but it felt so forced... Since she got out everything she could think about was fucking those two and, I'm sorry, but it was simply not realistic.
I don't think I will be reading the others, at least not now.

[K T]

The first story by Ali Hazelwood was very good and flowed nicely. The next ones by Adriana Herrera and Nikki Payne were not bad, a bit hard to follow in places and trying to cram too many concepts into a short story, they could really have done with more space to fully realise the worlds and flesh out the characters. The last story by Nina Saxena was a bit of a slog, typos, plot holes and a bit rushed.

The star ratings should really be 5*, 3*, 4*, 2*

[Michelle Halber]

A bit slow reading, as most of these a *really* dystopian.
Still, these books have more substance than 4 novellas.

I would happily read more of the world Ali Hazelwood created in First. IMO, that was the strongest book, but it was also the least futuristic, so that may have played a role in my enjoyment of it.

[Laurel]

I don't know, it's hard to rate multiple stories like this. I liked the Ali Hazelwood one and felt like it was kind of like a crazy alternate version of Bride (in a good way). DNFed the next two. Finished the last one but ONLY BARELY and I honestly don't think I even finished the epilogue because I wasn't super into it and it was dragging. So... 🤷‍♀️

[Arabella]

Interesting concept, but I think I would have preferred if these were all four separate complete books. Given how much each of the authors was trying to accomplish it would have benefited from being longer and more detailed as some of the actions/plot felt unmotivated.

[Kelly Hruza]

I found some of the storylines to be fascinating and I enjoyed the fast paced stories! Dystopian always has a way of intriguing me and causing a sense of dread that our world could turn out like that😂

[Shelby Doss]

First - Ali Hazelwood: Meh - I love an omegaverse but for some reason dystopian omega short story didn’t work for me. Needed to be longer.

[Frannie]

Only managed one of these, DNFd 2 of them and didn’t bother with the last

[Isabella Capouya]

average of 3.75⭐️
each one was good, hot, and dystopian so what more could i ask for

[R.L. Ní Fhlionn]

First book is least shit

[Beth D]

Live Hazelwood put the firced exhibition at the end wasn't great. Couldn't get into the others