Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Readability: 📖📖📖📖 (This is a shorter novel, so it was easy to fly through. If it was a longer book I would have struggled I think)
Feels: 🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔 (There’s some established but being a short novel details are left out and some of it just didn’t make the best sense to me)
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞 (In the theme of things – obsessive, stalking hero – there’s some romantic things (you know...the toxic kind but I like that haha) but he was also initially going to kill her and overall the romance was just lacking a bit to me)
Sensuality: 💋💋💋 (I wanted more of an emotional pull from these scenes. They were explicit but more mechanical to me)
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Humor: A bit
Perspective: First person from both the hero and heroine
More character focused or plot focused? mmm plot? It’s hard to say, it’s more sex focused haha
How did the speed of the story feel? fast
When mains are first on page together: almost immediately – towards the end of the prologue. They are together again as adults at 22% in (chapter 4)
Cliffhanger: No, this ends with a happily ever after
Epilogue: Not labeled as such, but the last 2 chapters take place 2 months later
Format: read an e-book version through kindle unlimited
Why I chose this book: I came across it on one of my searches for masked men 😆 – I think it was on one of the ‘similar as’ lists on either Amazon or Goodreads

Should I read in order?
I believe this is a standalone novel

Basic plot:
Aster is getting on her with life at college when she comes face to face with her stalker

Give this a try if you want:
- contemporary romance
- college setting
- Halloween!
- dark elements – please check your content warnings for safety!
- second chance-ish feels
- taboo – they were steb siblings but not raised as children together (15/17 when they met) and reunited as adults)
- tattooed hero
- secret identity – the hero pretends to be the heroine’s boyfriend at first
- revenge plot – the hero wants revenge on the heroine for what she did to his father
- higher steam – 6ish scenes including various kink elements like praise, degradation, masked sex, knife play, blood play, throat play

Ages:
- I don’t think they are specifically mentioned as adults, but from context clues regarding events I’d say the heroine is 20/21 and the hero is about 22/23 (He’s two years older than her)

First line:
Before my mom announced that we were moving in with her new husband, I didn’t even know she was married.

My thoughts:
Yay for a book playlist!!!

So I am very into certain dark elements. But very not into others. And unfortunately the books I’ve been picking have been including all those elements and some of it goes too far for me. I like a little darkness, but not too much. I don’t mind murder but I don’t love gore. I love dubcon and even noncon but don’t want blood used as lube. I’m not in love with reading about sexually cruelty or pain.

So this novel had some elements I really liked. But overall I had a little bit of a disconnect with the writing and some of the plot elements. There were a few things I just didn’t understand.  Our intro to the hero makes him seem like an arrogant (NOT in a good way) brat. Smirky and just….irritating. So I could have done without the prologue because it honestly kind of ruined the hero for me.


Few random reading stats for this author
# of books read: This is my first by this author
Average rating: 3 stars
Favorite book: This one?

Endearments

The hero calls the heroine ‘darling’ and ‘doll’. 

Quotes Any typos/mistakes are my own

Here’s some lines from the beginning that I get what they were trying to get the reader to feel but it just was cringey to me. This was our first meeting of the hero.

He smirked before leaning forward, placing his palms on my cheek, and bringing my body toward his. He smashed his lips against mine, and I melted inside. I had never been kissed before. My first kiss was with my new stepbrother. Once the shock subsided, I pulled myself away and slapped him.
///
“I was proving a point. You’re a virgin, and you kiss like one. Don’t worry; I’ll change that eventually. For now, save all your firsts for me. Or else.”
---
“Once you orgasm again, I’ll relent and let you breathe.” My eyes widened. What if I couldn’t breath? I’d die? “And if you don’t, you’ll die being fucked, and you’ll like it like the good little slut you are. I’ll make use of your corpse, through.”
---
I dunno, it’s just not doing it for me

“I won’t say I love you, Aster. It’s overrated. It goes past love. I’m obsessed with you. I crave you. I need you. I hunted you down for years to find you again, and I won’t let you go. If I have to say I love you to keep you, I’ll tell you every fucking day, but you know it goes beyond that. I would kill for you. I have killed for you. I’d let you keep killing just to keep you satiated. I’d kill everyone on this goddamn planet if it meant having you.”
 

Content warnings: These should be taken as a minimum of what to expect. It’s very possible I have missed some.

- toxic parenting – the heroine’s mother puts her in dangerous situations and is a bit neglectful
- mentions of domestic abuse and abuse on page – the heroine’s current boyfriend abuses her
- cheating – the heroine’s boyfriend cheats on her
- stalking of heroine by hero
- scenes of drinking
- drugging – the heroine is drugged at a party (E)
- murder on page
- torture including cutting off a person’s fingers

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes, safe sex aspects, consent, pregnancy/child in the story:

 
Safe sex: 

  No 

 
Hows the consent? 

  This is not a good novel for consent. Various elements of dubious and non-consensual acts occur so if consent is important to you in any way I would bypass this one 

 
Pregnancy/children in story? (Please note this is the best to my memory/note taking. If you see something I missed please feel free to message!) 

  No children in the story but the heroine does get pregnant within the last few chapters. 

 
6% - kiss (as children 15 and 17)
22% - 🔥masked sex – the heroine thinks the hero is her boyfriend and he follows her into a bathroom at the party and fucks her on the counter then they move to the door – throat play, praise/degradation
36% - 🔥forceful blow job – praise, blood and knife play
38% - 🔥kiss that leads into blood play, fingering for her, DP sex with the knife handle anally
48% - 🔥anal sex
76% - 🔥primal play, sex in front of a kidnapped victim (heroine’s cheating boyfriend) then fucking in front of said boyfriend
96% - 🔥oral for her, vibrator play, DP with with the vibrator