Type of read: Commuter Read.

What made me pick it up: I read 'The Never King' and was not a huge fan, but my book club has convinced me to give St. Crowe another chance with 'The Dark One.'

Overall rating: Nope. Just nope. I can't do it. I can't do another one of the books in this series. I feel like St. Crowe needed an editor, beta readers, and just a whole lot of help to make these books make sense. There's truly a great baseline story here, but it's so garbled and full of dick that there's no substance.  Don't get me wrong, I love a good spicy story, but when it's 95% spice, 3% reliant on a childhood favorite tale, and 2% actual writing (that seems like the first draft of a creative writing paper), I just can't get behind it. The only reason I'm thankful to have spent time reading 'The Dark One' is because it was a super quick read and is helping me get one step closer to 100 books for the year.

Reader's Note: 'The Dark One' includes themes of sex, assault, kidnapping, light bondage, choking, injury - including injury detail, and death.