Love NEFARIOUS: Slasher vibes dark romance

by Astrid Ares Wise

TRIGGER This book contains dark themes, violence, murder, non-consensual sexual content, taboo relationships, psychological abuse, toxic and obsessive dynamics, and explicit sexual scenes. Reader discretion is strongly advised.

Willow Awen Miller just wanted one normal year. Moving to Helena for the start of her senior year seemed like a fresh start—right up until a serial killer turns the sleepy town upside down.

Instead of quiet, she gets Dean. Reckless, magnetic, and the guy everyone wants to be near (and no one should), he crashes into her life with a fake relationship that quickly blurs into something terrifyingly real. The closer she gets to him, the harder it is to tell where his dark obsession ends and actual love begins.

As Halloween 2016 approaches, the town panics, people vanish, and the search for the killer closes in.

Some people fall in love. Willow falls into something nefarious.



Forced proximity

Fake dating

Enemies to lovers, lovers to enemies

Found family

Taboo family relationships

Morally black

Spicy

Genres: Dark Romance

366 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 28, 2026

Reviews

[Rowena Robinson]

I literally have no words for this book at all.

I feel like a whole new set of eyes (more than one set) needs looking at this book, the mistakes, grammar, punctuation errors were so bad.

The book read like a robot was reading it to me, so robotic and it didn’t flow. It was so choppy that I literally pushed through to see if would get any better and it didn’t.

Let me just say this book isn’t dark at all, and I do not appreciate how the author used the word Gay so many times in a paragraph to put down a male’s feelings and his emotions. That was wrong and really annoyed me.

There was no proper character development, no background history on them. Like why is Dean the way that he is, why does his mum hate him, why does Dean hate Kade so much, what happened to Willow’s mum, why’s Maddox a POS……

Don’t get me started on the whole “slasher vibes” 🙄🙄. This story could have been so good but it flopped so badly. The ending was so rushed, that it felt like the author was ticking off her checklist and missed something, so it was crammed in at the end (which again that ending made no sense).

Beginning of the sentence not starting with a capital letter, and this just didn’t happen once, it was a number of times.

The story was choppy with no depth, and was poorly written, I had this on my list cause the cover caught my eye and it seemed right up my street, but I was catfished.

There’s a sentence where the word “Stillbirth” is mentioned, THIS SHOULD BE IN THE TRIGGER WARNING LIST!!!! Better yet that whole sentence could have been written differently without even using that word.

Would not recommend at all

[Jenny Hughes]

I had the pleasure of reading this as an arc Thank you so much Astrid Ares Wise for sending me it.

Dean and Will love them but Dean you will think what a piece of s**** I seriously wanted to slap him at the start but later on you end up loving him worse than a bad boy I tell ya!

‼️You must read trigger warnings with this before reading‼️

This book kept me gripped and wanting to know what happens next! This has got to be one of fav reads this year really has you gripping at the pages!
Pitch black, raw and twisted and full of obsession right from the start literally!
Rollercoaster of a book! Can not wait to have book 2! 🖤

[Tóth Alexa]

I’m sorry but what was this?
When I first saw the cover and read the blurb I thought this book is definitely for me and is going to be so good. Unfortunately that didn’t happen.
The first chapter was very interesting reading from the killers point of view. I quite enjoyed the book in the beginning until the problems came.
I felt like the writing is very poor and the book itself lacking depth. We just had the scenes and no depth in them. It was rushed and nothing explained.
What made Dean the way he is?
What about his dad? Was he just a psycho or did something happen to him?
Why does his mom hate Dean?
What about Dean’s brothers and their relationship?
What happend with Willow’s mom and what about her brother Maddox?
I have a lot of questions and no answes for them.
Justifying someone’s feelings as being gay is a very wrong thing to say and the rape scene just threw me off. I think that’s just absolutely disgusting to write even if it is a dark romance. Hurting someone you say you love just because you’re jelous can’t be accepted.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eArc in exchange for my honest review.

[Rachel]

I picked this book off of Negalley and I am a grateful for receiving the ARC.

I will say this book has all the elements of a good dark romance but for me it wasn’t quite what I had in mind or expected.

I wasn’t really deterred by the plot but it didn’t really resonate with me and I had a hard time connecting with the characters

I will say the vibe of the book gives thriller or 90s slasher. I liked the premise of a girl from out of town going to a different school meeting the clique while trying not to fall for the troubled jock then finding out not everything or everyone is has they seem.

It was interesting finding out who the killer was and what was happening with that character with their POV. It definitely added a mystery element that really enjoyed.

[Isabella Grace]

RATING: ⭐️⭐️
SPICE: 🌶️

I wanted to CRY giving this three stars. I flirted aggressively with two, stared into the abyss, questioned every decision that led me here, and then finally landed on three because there were things I enjoyed. Somewhere beneath the problems was a dark little heartbeat trying its absolute hardest to keep this story alive.

But this genre? This setup? This COVER?

This should have been where dark romance dreams were made.

Hot guy? ✅
Hot girl? ✅
Morally bankrupt behavior? ✅
Serial killer terrorizing a small town? ✅
Fake dating? ✅
Toxic obsession? ✅
HOT GIRL WITH A BALL GAG IN HER MOUTH?! ✅✅✅

WE SHOULD HAVE BEEN GOLDEN.

I should have been sweating. Panting. Gnawing drywall. Whispering “this is so wrong” while turning the page faster because apparently my moral compass clocks out the second a fictional psychopath becomes possessive.

Instead, I’m standing in the wreckage like a detective at a crime scene asking one devastating question:

What the h*ll happened here? 😭

Love Nefarious had every ingredient required to ruin my life in the most pleasurable way possible. The concept had me by the throat before I even opened the book. Willow moves to Helena for her senior year hoping for one normal year, which is already the first mistake anyone can make in a dark romance. You do not request normalcy from the universe when there is a dangerously attractive man named Dean nearby. That is essentially ringing the dinner bell for chaos.

Then a serial killer starts turning this sleepy town into their own personal Halloween playground.

Enter Dean.

Reckless. Magnetic. Dangerous. The kind of man everyone wants to be near even though every survival instinct should be screaming, “MA’AM, BACK AWAY FROM THE PRETTY PSYCHOPATH.” Naturally, Willow does not back away. She gets pulled into a fake relationship with him, because nothing has ever gone wrong when two deeply damaged people start pretending to date while murders are happening around them.

This premise did not knock politely on my door.

It kicked the door off its hinges, slapped a ball gag on the table, and told me to cancel my plans.

And I did.

Unfortunately, the execution never fully delivered on the depraved little promise the premise made me.

The beginning was dark, immediate, and genuinely intriguing. There was this pitch-black energy that made me think I was about to be dragged into something vicious, unsettling, and psychologically twisted. I was READY. I had hydrated. I had stretched. I had signed the fictional waiver acknowledging that I was voluntarily entering the red-flag petting zoo.

But after that opening grabbed my attention, the story slowly loosened its grip.

The darkness remained in the events, technically. There is violence, obsession, manipulation, disturbing family dynamics, non-consensual content, and enough questionable behavior to make a therapist quietly close their notebook and pour themselves something stronger.

But darkness is more than stacking traumatic events on top of each other and sprinkling murder around like homicidal confetti. I need to feel the dread. I need the tension tightening around my throat. I need to understand the characters deeply enough that their worst decisions feel inevitable—even when I’m screaming at them not to do it.

Here, the emotional depth often wasn’t strong enough to support the weight of everything happening.

The writing relied heavily on telling me what the characters felt, who they were, and how intense the situation was instead of letting those things unfold naturally through their behavior. Conversations could feel stiff or strangely disconnected, and some transitions were so abrupt that my brain had to slam on the brakes and ask whether we had skipped a chapter.

The story moved, but it didn’t always flow.

At times, it felt like someone was reading me a list of events in a very serious voice:

This happened.
Dean reacted.
Willow felt something.
Someone behaved terribly.
Darkness!
Obsession!
Murder!
Next scene!

Meanwhile, I was clutching my Kindle like, “Yes, but can I please get some connective tissue with my psychological destruction?”

Willow had the potential to break my heart. She is trapped in an oppressive situation, desperate for freedom, and so accustomed to managing the emotions and expectations of the people around her that pieces of her identity have been worn away. I could understand why she wanted more. I could understand why someone like Dean—someone who sees her, wants her, and refuses to treat her as invisible—would be dangerously tempting.

That dynamic should have devastated me.

A girl who has never truly belonged to herself falling into the orbit of a man whose version of love looks suspiciously like possession?

HELLO. YES. PUT IT DIRECTLY INTO MY VEINS.

But I never felt like I knew Willow as deeply as I needed to. There were glimpses of her fear, resilience, innocence, and desire to take control of her life, yet too much of her character remained at the surface. She occasionally felt younger than she was supposed to be, and some of her choices seemed driven more by what the plot needed next than by an emotionally consistent internal journey.

I wanted to crawl inside her head. I wanted to feel the suffocation of her old life and the terrifying seduction of the new one. I wanted to understand why Dean became the danger she was willing to choose.

Instead, I was sometimes watching her decisions from across the street with binoculars, yelling, “BABY GIRL, EXPLAIN YOURSELF.”

And Dean…

Oh, Dean.

My beautiful missed opportunity.

This man was designed in a laboratory specifically to cause me problems. He is unbound by conventional morality, riddled with violent impulses, obsessively attached, and operating with a brain that does not process the world the way everyone else’s does.

That should be my catnip.

I am not asking a morally black MMC to volunteer at an animal shelter and communicate his feelings through an emotional-support workbook. I came here for the menace. I came here for the man who looks at a healthy boundary and says, “That’s adorable.” I came here to point at several felonies and whisper, “Your Honor, in his defense, he is very pretty.”

Dean did have moments where I could see the character he might have become. His POV offered an unsettling look at his impulses, and his interactions with his brothers occasionally brought an unexpected, almost bizarre humor to the story. There were flashes of something childlike in the way he processed certain situations, contrasted against the violence living inside him.

That contrast was interesting.

He could be entertaining, disturbing, oddly vulnerable, and completely deranged within the same general vicinity. When his obsession with Willow started influencing his behavior, I could see the bones of a fascinating character arc. Willow does not magically fix him, which I appreciated. She gives him something he wants badly enough to occasionally fight against his own impulses.

But I needed so much more explanation.

Why is Dean this way? What shaped him? Why does his mother hate him? Why is there so much hostility between Dean and Kade? What are the emotional mechanics of this family? Why does Maddox behave the way he does? Where is the history that would transform these relationships from random hostility into something meaningful?

You cannot hand me a deranged man and expect me not to request his complete psychological dossier.

I need the childhood trauma. The family secrets. The moment the first screw came loose. His preferred brand of cereal. EVERYTHING.

Without enough background or character development, Dean’s darkness sometimes felt like an assigned personality trait rather than something organic. He was violent because he was violent. Obsessive because he was obsessive. Possessive because this is dark romance and apparently somebody had to growl “mine.”

Sir, I support your wrongs. I really do.

But I would like to understand them before I begin preparing our joint legal defense.

The relationship between Dean and Willow also moved through several stages without giving each one enough room to become emotionally convincing. Fake dating, enemies-to-lovers, obsession, love, betrayal—there are so many delicious opportunities here, but the transitions often happened before the previous dynamic had fully settled.

I wanted their connection to feel like a slow infection.

One look becoming a thought.
One thought becoming a fixation.
One touch becoming a need.
One need becoming an obsession so twisted neither of them could remember where the pretending ended.

Instead, some of the emotional shifts felt announced rather than experienced. I knew they were becoming attached because the story told me. I just didn’t always feel that progression happening in my body.

And if you are going to give me obsessive, toxic, potentially murderous love, I need that sh*t to feel cellular.

I want to be appalled and aroused.

Confused and committed.

Calling the police with one hand while turning the page with the other.

Another issue I couldn’t ignore was the repeated use of “gay” as an insult or shorthand for men showing emotion, affection, or vulnerability. Dark characters are allowed to say ugly things. Books can contain prejudice without endorsing it. But when a particular attitude is repeated, goes unchallenged, and appears to be reinforced by the broader narrative, it stops feeling like intentional characterization and starts feeling careless.

“Having a girlfriend is gay” is not the edgy, masculine little mic drop the story seemed to think it was.

It was irritating, immature, and completely unnecessary.

Give me murderous men. Give me toxic men. Give me men who need twelve lifetimes of therapy and instead choose violence because scheduling is difficult.

But using queerness as a punchline?

Straight to jail. No conjugal visits. Your fictional abs cannot save you now.

The treatment of women also became exhausting. Again, I understand the genre. I am not wandering into a morally black dark romance expecting respectful gentlemen who host seminars on feminist theory. I know women may be objectified, controlled, harmed, or treated like property by characters who are intentionally terrible.

The difference is whether the narrative interrogates that behavior or simply lets it become the unquestioned worldview of the entire story.

Here, the misogyny became so constant and broadly accepted that it lost any power it might have had as part of the darkness. When every woman is treated like an object and every man must be an emotionless psychopath or risk being mocked, the characters begin to flatten into stereotypes.

Dark romance does not need good morals.

It does need intentional writing.

There were also grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and sentence-level issues that pulled me out of the story far too often. I am not the punctuation police. I will forgive a typo. I have personally committed crimes against commas that would get me banned from several respectable institutions.

But when the mistakes are frequent enough to interrupt the reading experience, they become impossible to overlook.

This desperately needed another thorough edit—or several fresh sets of eyes—to smooth the prose, catch the errors, strengthen the dialogue, and give the emotional beats room to land. Some passages felt choppy enough that the narration became almost robotic, which is especially damaging in a story that depends on obsession, fear, and sexual tension.

You cannot have me mentally correcting sentences while there is a ball gag in the vicinity.

That is a catastrophic misuse of resources.

The “slasher vibes” also never developed into what I hoped they would be. The Halloween 2016 setting, disappearing people, town-wide panic, and serial-killer mystery should have created an atmosphere thick enough to choke on. I wanted paranoia. Suspicion. That creeping sensation that danger was standing just outside the bedroom window while wearing an offensively attractive face.

Instead, the suspense often felt secondary, and when revelations arrived, they did not always have the groundwork required to make them hit. The ending felt rushed, as though several important boxes still needed checking and the story suddenly realized it was running out of pages.

Information was crammed in. Questions remained unanswered. Certain twists created confusion instead of impact.

I reached the end looking less like a satisfied dark-romance goblin and more like a woman whose flight had been canceled after she already paid airport prices for snacks.

And still—I did not hate this book.

That is what makes this review so painful.

There were moments when I was completely absorbed. The premise is undeniably addictive, Dean had flashes of the deranged charisma I wanted, and Willow’s circumstances gave her story real emotional potential. Some of the disturbing scenes did eventually reveal a larger purpose, and once I understood their role, they felt less like random shock value.

I also appreciated that the book was willing to go places that were genuinely uncomfortable. It did not soften every edge or try to turn Dean into a secretly wholesome golden retriever wearing a villain costume. He remains dangerous. Their relationship remains unhealthy. The story understands that obsession and love are not automatically the same thing, even when the characters cannot separate them.

Those are the reasons I kept reading.

They are also the reasons I’m frustrated.

This was not a bad idea. It was a fantastic idea that needed deeper characterization, stronger emotional development, cleaner writing, and more patience. The bones were there. The meat was there. The BALL GAG WAS THERE.

But someone forgot to connect all the organs before attempting resurrection.

Would I continue Willow and Dean’s story after that ending?

Probably.

Because apparently I have no self-preservation and unanswered questions are my personal brand of psychological warfare. I still want to know what happens to them. I still want the missing history. I still believe Dean could become the kind of fictional menace who makes me abandon every standard I have ever claimed to possess.

But Love Nefarious did not destroy me the way I wanted it to.

It introduced itself wearing blood, obsession, and a gorgeous cover, promised to ruin my life, then left me sitting on the edge of the bed saying:

“That was it?”

Three disappointed stars because the premise had me feral, the potential was enormous, and parts of the story genuinely held my attention.

But good was not enough when I could see GREAT standing right there in a ball gag, waiting to be unleashed.

Please check every trigger warning before reading. This book contains graphic and disturbing subject matter, including non-consensual sexual content, murder, violence, psychological abuse, toxic relationships, taboo family dynamics, and a stillbirth reference that readers may want advance warning about.

I survived.

My expectations did not. 😭

[VI 📚🖋️]

Solid 5 stars
Who loves good slasher horror movies from the 90s and early 00s, full of stupid teens - this book is for you! And when I say this, I mean stupid teens from Scream; I know what you did last summer. This book gives those vibes, but what if the victim dates the killer and he is not interested in killing her? Thank you, Astrid, for making me nostalgic for my teen years, when smartphones weren't a thing and we were actually out. I can still smell the nights with a bonfire and the amount of alcohol that would kill today's teens. Good times, really. And yes, girl, in my 18-19s I will definitely date Dean, though I was about to break his nose at least twice before this, for good measure. For those who are gonna say a lot happens in a short period of time in the book, I have a question - what kind of pot did you grow in, exactly? I love the realistic touch with the blunt kids; they are teens, driven by hormones and making bad decisions fast.
For me, the book is not pitch black, but objective; for a lot of people it will be. So if you read sweet things like “Haunting Adeline” and think it is dark, stay away from this book; you are still not ready for the dark side. Slasher dark romance means a pitch-black MMC, so check your trigger warnings.

[Faiza]

Love Nefarious by Astrid Ares Wise

Love Nefarious is definitely not a light or comfortable romance, and I think anyone picking it up should pay close attention to the trigger warnings first. This is dark romance at its darkest, with damaged characters, obsession, disturbing situations, and a relationship that constantly makes you question where the line between love and something much more dangerous actually sits.

I went into this one knowing very little beyond the warnings, and I'm honestly glad I did. It allowed me to discover Willow and Dean naturally instead of going in with expectations about where their story was headed. Once I started, I was completely absorbed. I read a huge portion of the book in one sitting because I needed to know what would happen next.

Willow broke my heart in so many ways. She's been living under an incredibly oppressive situation and has spent so much of her life trying to keep the people around her happy, particularly her father, that she's lost pieces of herself along the way. But underneath all that exhaustion and fear is a woman who desperately wants more. She wants control over her own future, wants to escape the life she's been forced into, and refuses to completely surrender to the circumstances surrounding her.

Her past is difficult to read about, and some of the things she has endured are genuinely heartbreaking. Those moments aren't there simply for shock value, though. They helped me understand why Willow behaves the way she does and why breaking free is such a complicated process for her. I found myself rooting for her throughout the entire story.

Then there's Dean.

Dean is complicated, disturbing, fascinating, and incredibly hard to look away from. His psychological disorder has a major influence on the way he experiences the world, processes situations, and deals with his impulses. His POV gave me an unsettling look into his thoughts, particularly when those urges become difficult for him to control.

What surprised me was how entertaining Dean could be despite how dark he is. His interactions with his brothers and the family dynamics brought some unexpected humor into the story. His way of interpreting certain situations can almost seem childlike at times, and I found myself laughing at moments when I absolutely wasn't expecting to.

His darker actions are obviously another matter entirely, but I became fascinated by the contrast between the different sides of him. There's violence and darkness, but there is also development. Watching Willow's influence begin to affect the way Dean handles his impulses was one of the most interesting aspects of his character arc.

I particularly liked that Willow doesn't magically "fix" him. Instead, her presence gives him something to fight for and another reason to resist parts of himself that he struggles to control. Their connection is unhealthy in plenty of ways, but it's also complicated enough that I couldn't simply dismiss it.

The book is intense, obsessive, emotionally heavy, and definitely uncomfortable at times. That's also what kept me so invested. Willow and Dean are both deeply damaged people, and neither of them fits neatly into the role of a perfect hero or heroine. Their choices can be difficult to understand, but I wanted to keep following them because I needed to see where all of this would eventually lead.

As someone who enjoys dark romance, I thought Love Nefarious delivered the darker atmosphere I was looking for while still giving the characters enough depth to make me care about them.

Just please don't skip those trigger warnings. This book goes into some seriously heavy territory, and knowing what you're getting into is important.

I'm already invested in Willow and Dean's story, and after that ending, I'm absolutely going to need the continuation. I have far too many questions about where these two—and everyone around them—go from here.

[Auriel.writes]

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — Love NEFARIOUS by Astrid Ares Wise
I picked up this book for a reason I don't think I've ever picked up a book before.
I'd watched Love NEFARIOUS get absolutely torn apart online. I didn't know the author personally, but after seeing everything that happened, I wanted to read her book and support an indie author. I went into it fully prepared for some of the criticism I'd heard to be true.
It wasn't my experience at all.
From the beginning, I was hooked.
There are a lot of characters in this story, but I never struggled to work out who was who. In fact, the characterisation was one of the strongest parts for me. Dean, Willow and the people surrounding them felt distinct, and the complicated family dynamics gave me even more to unravel as I read.
Then there is the mystery running underneath everything. A killer is on the loose, Willow gives Dean an alibi, they begin fake dating — and the story gets darker and more complicated from there.
And when I say dark, I mean dark.
This book deals with sexual assault, abuse, violence and some extremely difficult subjects. Please read the trigger warnings before going into it. What impressed me was that these weren't simply dark subjects thrown onto the page for effect. I felt the experiences of these characters through the way they thought, reacted and experienced the world.
One of the things I connected with most was the writing style itself. As an autistic reader, I noticed how often experience is conveyed through sensation rather than pages of conventional description. That worked incredibly well for my brain. I could inhabit the characters' experiences without needing every room or surrounding described to me.
Is the book technically perfect? No. I noticed some grammar issues and there are things I might have polished differently.
But here's the thing:
I didn't care.
The story had me.
The characters had me.
I wanted to know what happened next.
And sometimes a book connects with you strongly enough that the little imperfections stop mattering.
I started Love NEFARIOUS because of the noise surrounding it.
I finished it thinking it was the best book I've read this year.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
5 stars plus for me!!

[Lisa clarke]

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I absolutely LOVED this book from start to finish! 😱🖤 I genuinely didn’t want it to end, and now I’m sitting here wondering how I’m supposed to cope while I wait for Book 2!

This story completely sucked me in. The atmosphere, the darkness, the obsession, the twists, the tension… I was hooked. Willow and Dean’s relationship is an absolute rollercoaster, and I was simultaneously screaming at them, questioning everything, and desperately needing to know what was going to happen next. 😂

The fake dating, forced proximity, enemies-to-lovers-to-enemies, morally black characters and seriously twisted dynamics were EVERYTHING. There’s something so addictive about a story that makes you uncomfortable, keeps you guessing, and still has you turning the pages because you simply cannot put it down.

And that ending?! 😭😱 Excuse me while I stare into the void and impatiently wait for Book 2.

If you love your romance DARK, obsessive, taboo, messy, and completely unhinged, this needs to be on your TBR. Just make sure you check the trigger warnings first!

5 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — I need Book 2 immediately!

[Amber is Always Reading]

Love Nefarious is a gritty,dark,and twisted story of obsession, and a love so dangerous, one doesn’t know if the characters will survive its intensity.

Willow is such a downtrodden character,but I love her fire,and spirit. She has the desire to change her fate, and to rise above her brokenness and oppressive home life.
You feel for her, and the glimpses of her suffering are both crucial to the story, and sickening to watch. The author hid a great job of painting an accurate picture of her suffering without it being too gratuitous in nature.

Dean is a troubled soul, and I throughly understood the way his disorder is described, and the ways in which it was depicted.
I was so intrigued by his family dynamic,and found myself chuckling at the brotherly rivalries and interactions.

These characters are obsessive and their tale is dark, but I’m so invested in their fate. Looking forward to the continuation and conclusion of this series!

[The Dragon Den Book Blog]

Review of Love NEFARIOUS by Astrid Ares Wise
* * * * *
A very dark and deadly romance that is not for the faint of heart, and I honestly cannot wait for the second book.

Willow is stuck moving to a new town with her stepfamily...right as the bodies start popping up.
Terrifying. Disturbed. A slasher in the shadows.
She already has enough on her plate with new school, pushy horndogs, an intrustive classmate, and now she's stuck in the sights of a killer.

There is enough detailed trigger warnings in this book to let you know that the actions in this book at not off page, and that you will need a strong stomach and depraved mind to continue you...in the best way possible. Let's face it, some of the horrible things in this book are well deserved to the people we want to get slapped by karma.
I am intruiged to what else is to come after that ending, and how things will play out with all this unfinished business.

[Ayana]

Well, I've got lots of bad things to say.

It started pitch black and very simple, then got rid of my attention on black part and didn't get any better on simple part.

The writing was just bad. No "show" only "tell", strange dialogs, and some more.

So much judgement and hateful words. Basicly women are properties to use and man need to be posessive and unbound-by-any-morals psycopaths or they are constantly called gay ("having a girlfriend is gay" is just one of the quotes of that). And such opinions flow not just through a character's words, but through general narration behavior (not a single person disagreed, only supported the view) making it seem like the author's position or at least a moral for the book. Wow.

Although I don't mind dark and questionable morals in books, that has to be done well, otherwise it's just either disgusting, or cringe, or stupid, or shocking, or all of that together.

I was suprised how little the characters are, the age and the general direction of their actions. Everything about he FMC felt very childish and the MMC... well, no spoilers on how that plays out, but he at least follows logic on how the author wanted him to be.

The book is filled with a bunch of stupid senseless people. I lost logic in or was infuriated by stupidity of so many actions, words, behaviors, dialogs, inner monologs, scenes, everything.

There was an original second POW choice (not so much actually), but that didn't work out either. Intrigue — sure, maybe, interest — none.

Everything turned put to be not what I expected from the description and I didn't find anything for myself to enjoy other than the easiness to read if you can call it one with the amount of times my face change shape uncomfortably unhappy with what I was getting.

- - -
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with this free eARC in exchange for my honest review!

[Susanne]

Willow Awen Miller lands in Helena, Montana for senior year with the stepfather who kept her after her mother died and the two stepbrothers who came as part of the deal. She flinches when voices rise. Crowded hallways give her migraines. She's half Blackfeet, wears Lil Peep lyrics inked across her skin, and has spent years being the girl a small town picks to make an example of. Helena has bigger troubles than a transfer student, though. Local boys keep vanishing, and the ones who turn up are dead.

The reader meets the man doing it in chapter one. He races motocross, has three brothers and a mother who cooks for the church potluck crowd, and he looks at Willow once and decides she's his. He offers her a fake relationship. She says yes because one of her stepbrothers has gone from leering to grabbing, and a boyfriend is cover. He offers because a murder suspect with a girlfriend gets fewer knocks on the door. Neither of them keeps up the pretending as well as they think.

After that the book runs on one cruel piece of irony. Willow doesn't know what she's dating. He knows exactly, and can't stop himself doing it again. Around the two of them a town gets more frightened and more watchful by the week. How Willow finds out, and what she does about it, is the rest of the book, and it stays off this page.

Character Development
Dean Harper holds the whole thing together, and Wise is careful to build him out of something rather than leave him a stylish silhouette. His father came home from war talking about killing as the thing that makes a man, then spent years beating all four sons and saving the worst of it for Dean, a lot of it in a cabin the family never got rid of. Dean tells the reader early that he's a psychopath and doesn't especially agonise over it. What he does instead is calculate: how to keep his brothers, his friend, and eventually Willow from being dragged under with him. His feeling for her is possessive from the first chapter, and the book never sands that down into something more comfortable. He kills to keep his best friend clean. He kills to get rid of an ex who could break his alibi. Each time, his narration lays out why it had to happen. The gap between the boyfriend Willow sees and the man who acts the second she leaves the room is where most of the book's unease comes from, and Wise clearly wants it sitting there.

Willow is a strong presence on the page without being drawn as deeply as her opposite number. Her sensory overwhelm and her constant watchfulness are written with real attention, and they also carry more plot weight than seems fair to her. They mark her out as a target. They make her the one always studying a room. They hand the story a reason she can't see what the reader has known for two hundred pages. Her movement through the book isn't really growth. It's a grim kind of adjustment, learning to stand beside things she should be running from. That can absolutely be an arc. What weakens it here is that Willow narrates her feelings more than she lives through what they cost her, and one late reconciliation asks a lot of the reader without putting in the work to earn it.

Whatever else is true, the story is honest that Dean holds all the power. He has the secret, the willingness to hurt people, the alibi that leans on her, and a physical dominance the sex scenes keep returning to. Willow's one piece of counter-weight is that he can't stand for her to look at him with disgust. To the book's credit, it leaves that imbalance where it is instead of staging some third-act levelling. Less to its credit, it keeps routing Willow's arousal through scenes where she has no real ability to refuse, and calls the result complicated want, when a lot of the time it's the prose declining to use the word coercion.

The wider cast is where things thin out. Dean's brothers, Phil and the younger twins Kade and Ray, blur together, sorted mostly by whichever one is currently warning Willow off or getting hit for standing too close to her. Maddox, the stepbrother, is menace with a single flashback line where a motive should be. Milo Dillon, Dean's unravelling best friend, is the one supporting character with a life of his own: a habit that's eating him, a girl he lost, a tie to something genuinely ugly running on the edge of town. The book plainly cares about Milo, but he works more as a mechanism than a person here, and reads like someone being held back for a spin-off. Angela, who runs that ugly thing, never gets past caricature. Ava and Ashley Grimes, both dating into the Harper family, mostly give Willow somebody to eat lunch with.

Themes
Under the romance, the book is asking about inheritance. If you're raised inside violence, are you the author of what you become, or just the next person carrying it. Dean's father is the case for the second answer, and Dean half accepts it. Wise keeps walking him back into his father's spaces, the cabin above all, and letting him do his father's things while telling himself he had no say in it. Running through that is a flat, angry claim about a particular kind of manhood. The father who came home glorifying the war, the boys who corner girls at parties, the men who pay for what Angela sells, all of it drawn as one rot, with Dean's killing framed almost as pruning.

Consent is the thing the book raises the most and settles the least. It's right there on the content page, and the story keeps building rooms where a woman's yes is missing, or drugged out of her, or given at knifepoint. Where the novel goes quiet is on its own central couple. It wants Willow's desire for Dean to be real, something she takes back for herself. It also wants the reader holding everything Dean has done in the same hand. Those don't sit together comfortably, and instead of staying in the discomfort, the book turns up the heat and keeps moving.

Writing Style and Effectiveness
The novel is first person and present tense, alternating between Dean and Willow every chapter, each one stamped with a month so you feel the year tighten from a summer party toward December. That structure is the best decision in the book. Because the reader has been inside Dean's head since chapter one, every soft scene between the two of them carries a second meaning Willow can't hear, and Wise plays that gap well. It works best in a mid-book moment where Willow tells Dean she'd want the killer put down and he has to keep his face still.

Sentence to sentence, the writing is serviceable and not much more. The voice is foul-mouthed, extremely online, stuffed with song titles and brand names, and it does hold steady between the two narrators, which isn't nothing. It also repeats, especially Willow's chapter-by-chapter cataloguing of Dean's body, and it explains where it could show, worst of all in Dean's narration, which keeps spelling out his own symbolism. The gore is committed and doesn't cut away. The sex is frequent, very explicit, and built around control and degradation, and by the final third it's elbowing the suspense out of scenes that should be tightening the screws.

The shape of the book is front-heavy. The fake-relationship setup and the long slow reveal are tightly built. Then the last act drops in a large criminal storyline almost from nowhere, clears a significant revelation about one of the deaths in a single glancing paragraph, and stops mid-scene on a cliffhanger that exists to sell book two. There's even a stray line of editorial feedback left sitting in the published book's jacket copy. It doesn't touch the story, but it matches the hurried feel of those closing chapters.

Conclusion
Love Nefarious goes all the way in on a hard idea and doesn't blink. The killer narrating half of it never gets redeemed, and love never fixes him. He's loved anyway, by a girl who ends the book helping to keep him out of a cell. That nerve is real. So is the dual-POV machine underneath it, which turns plain dramatic irony into a low, steady dread. So is the choice to hand Dean a specific, grim origin instead of leaving him cool and empty. On premise and commitment, this belongs on the darkest shelf in the genre.

The prose stays at functional and circles the same handful of descriptions. Willow's inner life never gets the attention Dean's does, and her neurodivergence is asked to carry too much structural load. The supporting cast is flat. The third act arrives underdeveloped and leaves unfinished. Most of all, the novel keeps opening a hard question about consent inside its main relationship and keeps picking pace over an answer. There's plenty here for readers who like their dark romance honest rather than tidy. The ones who also want it tightly built are going to feel the seams.

Evaluation
Overall Rating: ★★☆☆☆ (2/5)
Writing Style: ★★☆☆☆ (2/5): a consistent two-hander voice and dramatic irony that genuinely works, weighed down by repetition, over-explained villain narration, and a badly balanced final act
Characters: ★★☆☆☆ (2/5): Dean is vivid and coherently broken and carries the book almost by himself, with Willow underdrawn beside him and the rest of the cast barely sketched
World-Building: ★★☆☆☆ (2/5): the small-town-rot atmosphere convinces, but the Harper household, the town itself, and the late criminal subplot are outlines rather than built spaces
Spice Rating: ★★★★★ (5/5): frequent, graphic, degradation-focused sex across the whole book, alongside several non-consensual scenes

Trigger warnings (from the book's own content page): graphic violence and gore, including detailed physical assault, torture, and combat; sexual violence, including non-consensual sexual acts, coercion, and threats; stalking, abduction, and extreme psychological manipulation; dubious consent, in scenes where consent is blurred or entirely absent; drug use and abuse; domestic and familial abuse, including grooming and incestuous undertones; heavy profanity and derogatory language; and possessive, obsessive dark-romance dynamics pushed to an extreme. Beyond that list, the book puts on the page the rape of the heroine by the love interest, a killing she's forced to witness, a stepbrother assaulting a drugged victim, and an extended trafficking-ring sequence.

Recommended for readers who want serial-killer romance carried right through to a villain who stays a villain, no redemption and no gentle landing, the way the most extreme end of the genre does it. It suits readers here for dual-POV dark erotica built on CNC and degradation who don't need the plot resolved or the heroine written with the same depth as the hero. Readers who want a fully built world, a supporting cast with pulses, or a book willing to answer its own moral questions will probably come away frustrated.

[Jessica Figueroa]

Spicy 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Dual POV
282 pages

The book does give off 90s slasher film vibes. Main characters are teenagers ages 18/19.

The book contains graphic scenes, of gore, murder, abuse and non con, suicide. Please read trigger/content warnings before reading.

The book is dark!
There were many moments during this book that I lifted my head to look around, to see if anyone was reading what I just read. Lots of WTF moments. The start of the book is very fast paced. With a decent amount of suspension between chapters. So many plot twists in the book that you're not really expecting. It does slow towards the 70% mark but picks up again shortly after.

The MMC has possessive, dominating, manipulative traits. The FMC is a virgin.

Review 🖤

I did enjoy this book. There was many parts that made me feel uncomfortable reading due to the nature of the scenes. But I believe that dark romance books which carry non con are supposed to make you feel uncomfortable. So for that, it did exactly as it intended. The relationship build between the main characters was very push and pull which I enjoyed. I was worried around the 70% mark that it slowed down quite a bit and was going to stay that pace towards the end. But nope we were back at that fast paced story telling again. So much happens in this book but it's a very easy to follow storyline. The FMC went through a lot but was strong. And certain parts of her story resonated with me. And although I don't condone any of the MMC actions, he did seem like he had a soft side to him or was he just manipulating me from the page.

Do recommend, but again please check the triggers.

[Reader]

*Don’t forget to read the trigger warnings please*
I started reading this book with only the knowledge of the trigger warnings, without any ideia of the history itself.
And I can say I don’t regret it, because I got the chance to get to know the characters from the very start and get into the story as well.
I started reading in the afternoon. By the evening I was already halfway through the book (in one sitting), and that doesn’t happen often.
As a dark romance reader, I find this book pretty dark and in the same way so involving.
My heart stood with Willow the entire time because I love her, the way she tries to keep everyone happy, aka her father, but ends up destroying pieces of herself in the process, just like me.
And then there’s Dean, the MMC with a psychic disorder. He’s pretty dark, not gonna lie, but I can’t help liking him.
He got all my heart when he killed a certain someone.
Through his POV we can see that same disorder when he has te urge to cause harm to someone.
However, we can also see this character’s development as the narrative goes on.
I loved the way Willow’s presence in his life helped him to shut those urges down.
I recommend this book to the dark romance readers that read a two page of trigger warnings like a menu.
(Ps: I’m sorry for any grammar or spelling mistakes 😁)

[Samantha Brown]

First check your triggers your mental health matters. This book was an absolute blast! If you love those nostalgic 90s/early-00s slasher horror movies with stupid teenagers, questionable decisions, bonfires, and a killer on the loose, you NEED to read this! 🔪🩸
I absolutely loved the Scream/I Know What You Did Last Summer vibes, but with a seriously fun twist—the victim ends up dating the killer! 😂 The teenage characters felt so realistically messy, impulsive and hormone-driven, which somehow made the whole thing even more entertaining.
Dean was definitely a favourite for me. Dark, dangerous and completely unhinged, yet somehow impossible not to love. The dark romance and slasher elements worked so well together, and I loved how unapologetically dark it was.
The nostalgia, the chaos, the questionable decisions and the pitch-black humour made this such a fun read. Definitely check your triggers before diving in because this is DARK, but if you're ready for a seriously twisted slasher romance, absolutely give it a go!

[NadezhdaGGCS]

Got mixed feelings about this one. It's a wild, fast-paced ride with a down-bad MMC and plenty of tension, but it hits you with some intensely dark, brutal scenes. The writing style improves as it goes, though the dialogue feels a bit flat since everyone sounds almost the same. The plot is also a stretch, packing way too much chaos and trauma into just three months.
​Still, if you want a dark romance that pushes every limit and you're willing to just go along for the ride without questioning the logistics, it's a solid read. Just make sure to check your trigger warnings.

[Jordyn breitkreutz]

** please read trigger warnings**

This book covers some pretty dark themes.
I really liked the concept and idea of this story. I felt the writing was a bit all over the place. Each characters dialog felt the same, no real personality given to each individual. The writing was also a little bland in the middle. The 'exciting' parts were good, but it would taper off fast. You could see the growth of the author as the book progressed though.

I would read the next book to see what happens, I just hope the author can focus more and creating a personality for each character.

[Päivi (Lukunurkka)]

Täytyy myöntää, en ollut kuullut tästä kirjasta ennen kuin tämän kirjoittaja itse tarjosi tätä luettavaksi. Päätin lukea otteen tästä ja kuinkas kävikään, en voinut enää lopettaa. Tarina itsessään ei ole sivumäärällisesti huiman pitkä, joten tämä luki päivässä. Tarina sinkoaa liikkeelle heti ja päästää lukijansa kurkistamaan täysin sekopäisen sarjamurhaajan pään sisään. Pidin kirjan kirjoitustyylistä ja vauhdikkaasta juonenkaaresta. Tarinaa kerrotaan kolmen henkilön näkökulmasta ja jotkin juonikuviot etenivät välillä ehkä hiukan liian nopeastikin ja olisin ehkä kaivannut niihin jotain lisää, ahne kun olen. Kirja on täynnä erittäin makaabereja perhesuhteita, kiellettyjä tunteita ja vähän irti revittyjä raajojakin. Spicya oli, mutta hillitysti, joskin ei ehkä iiiihan sitä perinteisintä vaniljaa kuitenkaan. Sen enempää spoilaamatta erään hahmon rooli oli tässä niin herkullisen unhinged ja sitä olisin kaivannut myöskin ehkä vähän lisää. Juuri kun tuudittautui kirjan jopa merkillisen rauhalliseen flowhun, lukijaa riepotellaankin jälleen melko brutaalisti. Tämä on todella synkkä ja leikittelee monilla aika kyseenalaisilla troopeilla ja triggereillä, välillä se oli vähän kiltti ja toisena hetkenä täysin sekopäinen ja minä viihdyin alusta loppuun. Ja siis mitä ihmettä mihin kohtaan tämä loppui, tässähän on pakko päästä tietämään mitä seuraavaksi tapahtuu vaikka odotankin ehkä vähän kauhulla mitä tuleman pitää. Haluan tämän kirjan hyllyyni koska rakastan tuota kirjan kantta, se on upea!

[readwith.vic]

This one was tough, it had all the ingredients for a kind of book that I might enjoy, however due to a number of factors it wasn’t enjoyable.

This follows Willow, who is a girl with family issues and a Stepbrother of nightmares. (The stepbrother/brother SAing and r@ping storyline is incredibly overdone). She is trying to make friends jn the town and ends up meeting The Harper brothers. I don’t even know how many of them there are and I didn’t care to remember as there is very little character development throughout.

From the very beginning I figured out who the serial killer was, and it was incredibly difficult to then read the rest of the book knowing this information 😂

Dean the main male lead is something else entirely, I don’t enjoy him whatsoever. The mannerisms he has, sentences he speaks it’s a car crash. He excessively degrades multiple women and showcases the issues that he has.

Points that I have to make for my own sanity are:
1. Referencing everything as ‘gay’ for absolutely no reason at all, will damage the storyline and ability to connect with characters.
2. Having a huge family and no character development makes the characters unmemorable.
3. The whole Halloween night is WILD to me. What is done to her… WILD!? For then later scenes to happen in the book that make you go… sorry????

A saving grace (and the reason this was 2*) is from the start where I did quite enjoy parts and I laughed at some of the dialogue and humour. However, in a whole I read because I hoped something would rise from it all… nothing more to add.

[Naomi Tickner]

4.5 ⭐️ — Dark, Messed-Up & Completely Addictive

Okay, first things first… I NEED Book 2 immediately because that cliffhanger?! 😭😂

This is a pitch-black romance, so please make sure you check the trigger warnings before diving in. If you’re anything like me, though, you’ll probably read them and think, fuck it, let’s go! 😂

Dean… wow. This man is absolutely obsessed, completely messed up, and somehow you can’t help but love him. Never mind the things he does—he’s basically every woman’s biggest red flag, but secretly the one we all crave. 🚩🔥

And then there’s Willow. What a woman. She’s determined, strong and resilient, and despite everything that gets thrown at her, she refuses to give up. She’s a true warrior, and I absolutely loved watching her fight through everything.

The story is dark, twisted and messed up in all the best ways. It completely sucked me in and had me hooked from beginning to end. It’s the kind of book that stays in your head and leaves you desperate for more.

So yes, 4.5 stars from me! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

The only reason it didn’t get the full 5 stars is because I’m currently sulking over that bloody cliffhanger. 😂😭

Now hurry up with Book 2 because I NEED ANSWERS! 👀🔥

[Amanda N]

Just when I thought this story couldn’t get any more twisted, Wise proved me wrong.

I went into Love Nefarious fully aware of what I was signing up for. I read every trigger warning, and the author herself even gave me a heads‑up — so I was surprised when the beginning felt relatively tame. Sure, there were dark themes, murder, and sexual content woven throughout, but nothing too outrageous… until I hit the 50% mark. That’s when everything started to spiral, and it didn’t stop until the very last page.

Willow is a teenage girl just trying to survive long enough to escape her home and her abusive step‑brother — all while a serial killer stalks her town. Everything shifts when she enters a “pretend” relationship with Dean, the local bad boy. Their connection grows fast and deep, but don’t be fooled: this is not a warm, comforting romance. Both Willow and Dean carry trauma and demons that claw at them every single day. They make each other better, but neither can outrun what’s inside them, and the consequences of that unravel in brutal, shocking ways.

Just when you think it can’t get worse, it does — in ways you will not be prepared for.

Read your triggers and hold on tight. This book is a descent, and Wise makes sure you feel every step of the fall.

[Alexis Phompat]

One thing that i noticed that actually causes issues for those with reading disabilities, if a person uses the text to voice option on kindle, the image used on chapter pages makes it so the feature skips over the entire chapter page. So example, if you are on the page that says Chapter 2, it will read the part where it says what chapter it is then it skips to the next page and reads nothing else because of the branch image used. Might want to change that for those that use the feature to read.
The book could also use another round of editing because there are several grammatical and spelling errors and it reads super choppy.
The writing comes off as juvenile and everything is pretty cliche. The outcast girl that considers herself weird goes to a new school and catches the eye of a camo pant wearing bad boy. Every other girl is described as a barbie look alike by the FMC because of course she's so different and weird that everyone else is just a perfect popular barbie girl... Not to mention that the entire story is laid out like the reader cant figure out things for themselves? Like let us use our minds a little, we don't need everything spelled out for us. The FMC's nickname being Twitchy... Yeah idk. I like dark romance but I like it when its done well.

[Chloe Baigan]

I was asked to be a part of the street team for this, and jumped at the chance as it sounded right up my street!
OH HOW I WAS WRONG!

I did finish this book, but it was a waste of my time.

This is a temu rip off version of EOD by LR. I mentioned this in the group chat, and the author told me LR was her muse and she took alot of inspiration from her. Her you have ripped off the plot of her books!

This book also uses the word GAY as a negative term when referred to a man who is soft. Its derogatory and disgusting.

I also mentioned in the group chat that Willow is mentioned to be from a black foot heritage and described as 'exotic' looking - the art work does not represent this at all. The art work shows a normal looking WHITE girl. The author and other ARC readers brushed off my comments saying Willow is 'tanned', not mixed raced. Loves it literally says it in the book!!!
I left the group after that as the author didn't want to take any sort of feedback.

Book in my opinion isn't worth the read - its all over the place, poor English & poor grammar with a plot with many holes in it.

[Tasha]

Love NEFARIOUS by Astrid Ares Wise is definitely not your typical dark romance. It combined obsessive romance, mystery, and serious slasher vibes to create a story that is disturbing, addictive, and impossible to look away from. Dean was the definition of morally questionable, and his relationship with Willow is complicated, intense, and definitely toxic: but somehow, that’s part of what made their dynamic so compelling. The suspense kept me guessing, and the darker elements gave the story a creepy, almost horror-movie atmosphere. I will say this book is very dark, so definitely read the trigger warnings before picking it up. There are some genuinely disturbing scenes and themes that won't be for everyone. The pacing wasn't perfect for me in places, but the twists, tension, and sheer chaos kept me turning the pages. And that ending?! Let’s just say I am absolutely curious about what comes next. Overall, Love NEFARIOUS was an enjoyable dark romance with serial-killer vibes, obsession, spice, danger, and morally gray characters that I enjoyed!

I received an ARC copy from NetGalley. Thank you for giving me the chance to read this novel and share my honest review of the novel

[nkc]

✨ 3 stars | 4 🌶️

(Thank you to the author, Astrid Ares Wise, for the eARC via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review 💌)

I really enjoyed the storyline throughout this book, and major props to the author for creating something so dark and original! I would definitely recommend reading the trigger warnings before picking this one up, as there are some pretty dark and heavy themes throughout the story.

I enjoyed both the FMC and MMC, and I thought their characters were interesting. However, I did struggle with the level of darkness in the story given that the characters are seniors in high school. While the dialogue and interactions between the characters did feel age-appropriate, some of the darker elements felt like they would have worked better with older characters. I think aging the characters up would have made the darker aspects of the romance feel a little more fitting for the story.

Overall, I enjoyed the unique storyline and the darker direction the author took, but the characters' ages made it difficult for me to fully connect with the romance.

[Caitlin Hinkle]

Let me start off by saying always check your tigger warnings. This book is dark and won’t be for everyone.

I wanted to read this book based on the title and cover alone. I hadn’t heard much about it and I just happened to stumble across it.

I had to put it down a few times, but then had to keep reading because I was hooked. I knew by chapter 11 I was going to buy this to have a physical copy for my shelves.

I love the MMC, he’s rough around the edges, and rough is probably an understatement, with that only soft for the FMC. And I love that. Could the relationship be seen as unhealthy, yes. But are they still perfect of each other, yes in a strange way.

There were a few moments where you can tell some big is about to happen and then it was not what i expected. I liked that, it doesn’t happen often with me when i read books.

There is going to be another book, i wouldn’t say it ends on a cliffhanger, but that could just be my opinion.

[Kheyra Santos]

This was such a dark and wild reading experience! I really enjoyed the slasher vibes, Halloween atmosphere, and the way the romance became increasingly twisted and intense. The story pulled me in with its dangerous characters, obsession, secrets, and disturbing family dynamics. Dean was definitely a character who kept me guessing, and I enjoyed the darker, more unhinged moments throughout the story.

I will say that this book is very dark, so the trigger warnings should definitely be taken seriously. There is violence, murder, nonconsensual sexual content, psychological abuse, toxic and obsessive behavior, and taboo relationships.

There were a few moments where I wanted more development in certain areas, but overall I found it entertaining, unpredictable, and completely different from a typical romance. And that ending definitely left me wanting to know what happens next.

[Angel (huge fan of all things Totoro) B.]

**Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC**

Okay. This definitely started with a bang; well, technically, a head being sawed off. I loved the gore and darkness of this book, but the characters prevented me from really enjoying this. The trauma, the obsession, the sheer craziness was great! Yes, the FMC felt a little unrealistic at times(like being assaulted and then going to a party afterwards, but everyone processes trauma differently). I guess the characters being so young left a weird taste in my mouth. That is the part that felt the most disorienting.

The writing was well done for me, and I would like t read the second book to see where the author takes things. Trigger warnings are like a shopping list for me. The more there are, the grittier, THE BETTER.

[Heather TBR AFTER DARK]

I really struggled with this one at first. Within the first six chapters I felt like I'd met SO many characters that I genuinely couldn't remember who was who 😭 I pushed through though, and whenever the focus came back to Dean and Willow, I LOVED it. Their obsession, chemistry and completely unhinged dynamic were easily my favourite part.

Unfortunately, whenever all the other characters and storylines came back into play, I found myself getting confused again and it pulled me out of the story. I definitely think this is one where you need to READ THE TRIGGER WARNINGS because it goes very dark and covers some seriously heavy topics. Overall, 3⭐️ from me — Dean and Willow had me hooked, I just wish I'd been able to follow everything happening around them as easily.