Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Readability: 📖📖📖📖📖 (I just wanted to read this book all the time)
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥+
Humor: Yes
Perspective: first person from both the hero and heroine
More character focused or plot focused? maybe plot? It’s a good mix though
How did the speed of the story feel? medium
When mains are first on page together: they aren’t on page together until about 20% but there is a lot of interaction still – texting, watching videos/cameras….so it didn’t feel like that long
Cliffhanger: No, this ends with a happily ever after
Epilogue: Yes (maybe 6 months or so in the future)
Format: I own the paperback but heard the audiobook was good so I bought that and listened to it!
Why I chose this book: I kept hearing it recommended and heard it had mask kink in it 😉
Mains: This is a M/F relationship between a cishet hero and heroine

Should I read in order?
This is book 1 in Allen’s Into Darkness series.

Basic plot:
Aly has no idea that her comments on her favorite thirst trap tiktoker will draw his attention...

Give this a try if you want:
- contemporary romance
- stalker hero who works in cyber security
- nurse heroine
- dubious consent elements laced with consent?? It was a great mix to me – the danger of it, with the trust built….
- heroine owns a cat (Fred)
- strong heroine that works out
- mask kink along with knife play, breath play, gun play, primal play, praise for both, spanking...
- hero is over 6 feet tall
- higher steam – 7ish full scenes

Ages:
- hero is 26, didn’t catch heroine

First line:
The new girl wasn’t doing too well.

My thoughts:
So I loved this book. It was exactly what I wanted. Like it was written just for me 😆 I wanted all these elements but in a more playful manner than some of my prior reads. I loved the humor, and how our heroine keeps the hero in check…I love the danger and darkness tied in with the gentleness and consent.

I ended up buying the audio because I heard it was so good and I am glad I did because I had so much fun with it. I adore duet narration and it made this book all the better to me.

I loved how much it focused on the main characters through the first half of the book. I just loved both of them, and them falling for each other was so fun.

Few random reading stats for this author
# of books read: This is my first
Average rating: 5 stars
Favorite book: This one!

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

- mentions of SA
- heroine works as a nurse, so some scenes of trauma
- cannibalism and murder remembered (done by a side character)
- child abuse
- death and murder on page
- knife play, including accidental stabbing
- parental death
- serial killers
- stalking – hero does invade heroine’s home and sets up cameras

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

 
Safe sex: 

  Heroine’s on the pill (no condoms??) 

 
How’s the consent? 

  It’s definitely a gray area – if consent is super important, maybe forgo this one because the hero does push boundaries and breaks into her house and installs cameras….but there’s levels of consent here and it turns into consensual dubious consent…. 

 
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!) 

  There’s some talk of wanting future children but no pregnancy 

 
Chapter 2 – 🔥 hero self pleasure
Chapter 5 – 🔥 heroine self pleasure
Chapter 8 – 🔥 blow job
Chapter 11 – 🔥 titty fucking and throat play
Chapter 14 – 🔥 blindfold, handcuffs, oral/fingering for her, anal finger play, breast play, hero comes in his pants
Chapter 16 – kiss
chapter 20 – 🔥 shower sex
Chapter 25 – 🔥 vibrating butt plug, doggy, spanking