Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Once again figuring out how to write an accurate and fair review has tied me in knots. I love Anna Zaires and I have read everything she has written (including the urban fantasy and rom-com books she co-authored with hubby Dima Zales) and so I can state that this is not a dark romance book. Usually, with dark romance I try to include trigger warnings, so that people don’t buy a book by mistake that contains disturbing material, but mostly, because readers (myself included) buy books precisely because of those trigger warnings. And the triggers warnings for this book are: none, except maybe for mid-level violence. But usually, to be labeled as dark, the violence needs to be perpetrated by the (anti-)hero or have a sexual component to it (also involving the H). But here we have a murder (totally unrelated to the H) and when the H is shown to kill, he does it in defense of the h and the bad guys really had it coming, so it is totally justified. In order to get labeled dark there doesn’t really need to be physical force involved. There could also be psychological pressure, popular tropes are revenge plots (the H wants to get his hands on the h for being wronged by her family in the past), debt collection (the H manipulates the h into a relationship with him in lieu of a debt owed either by her or a family member), exploiting an emergency situation the h finds herself in (which often was engineered by the H himself so that he than can offer to “rescue” her), all situations that I would classify as dubious consent. But despite the title, which has a seductively ominous ring to it, the H, Nikolai Molotov, had nothing to do with any of Chloe’s problems and he also isn’t trying to exploit the dire circumstances she finds herself in. He lives on a secluded estate in a remote area and he is looking for a qualified live-in tutor for his little son. Being rich, he is able to offer a high salary as an inducement, which is totally legitimate. While being on the run, Chloe sees his ad in a local shop and since she is down to her last handful of dollars she decides to apply, as she for one loves children and for another has recently finished her degree in education. She also feels that hiding on a large estate will help her evade her pursuers. So, she delivers herself into the Devil’s Lair. Only Nikolai is really nice to Chloe, treats her well and her little charge is very well behaved and intelligent. There is a mutual attraction between Chloe and Nikolai, and when they finally fall into bed together, the sex is 100% consensual, no coercion of any kind involved. During Chloe’s stay at his home, the most sinister thing Nikolai does, is hide her car keys. But when Chloe finally gets rattled and decides to leave, Nikolai hasn’t put any measures in place to keep her from leaving (admittedly, it was kind of an oversight on his part, but still)… If there could be said to be an element of darkness, then it is mostly atmospheric: the hints that there is some hidden trauma in Nikolai’s past which also affected his sister and son, Chloe’s growing realization that Nikolai might not be an upstanding business-man (if there really is such a thing), but rather has ties to the Russian mafia, which in fact, turns out to be the case. But even that is qualified: in the one scene we see Nikolai in his “mafia boss mode”, instead of torturing and killing an informant of his “business” competitor, he offers him money and a new life. To sum up, I wouldn’t label this dark romance, especially if you compare it to Anna Zaires’ own earlier works like Twist Me (very dark), Capture Me (dark), and Tormentor Mine (also dark, but heroine is afforded more agency). If I had to classify it, I would go with “romantic suspense”, and as such it was well-plotted, atmospheric, and gripping, even though I guessed the underlying mystery the very first time it was hinted at, hence 4 stars. Maybe the second book in this duet will be a bit darker, though I doubt it.