Dark Romance Recommendations

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When a chance encounter sparks an unlikely bond between rival murderers Sloane and Rowan, they find something elusive―the friendship of two like-minded, pitch-black souls who just happen to enjoy killing other serial killers.
From small-town West Virginia to upscale California, and from downtown Boston to rural Texas, the two hunters collide in an annual game of blood and suffering, one that pits them against the most dangerous monsters in the country.
But as their friendship develops into something more, the restless ghosts left in their wake are only a few steps behind, ready to claim more than just their newfound love.
Can Rowan and Sloane dig themselves out of a game of graves?
Or have they finally met their match?

Tropes: Golden retriever x black cat / He falls first / Touch him/her and die / Friends to lovers / Forced proximity / One bed 

 I want someone with a soul as black as night. Someone who would burn the world down for me and not lose a single minute of sleep over it.

Trauma nurse Aly Cappellucci doesn’t need any more kinks. She likes the one she’s landed on just fine. To her, nothing could top the masked men she follows online. Unless one of those men was shirtless, heavily tattooed, and waiting for her in her bedroom. She dreams about being hunted by one in particular, of him chasing her down and doing deliciously dark things to her willing body. She never could have guessed that by sending one drunken text, those dreams would become her new reality.

I want things most people don’t, craving darkness and depravity instead of light and love.

Josh Hammond has spent his life avoiding the limelight, but his online persona is another story. At night, he posts masked thirst traps for his millions of fans to drool over, but one follower has caught his eye: Aly. After reading a comment begging him to break into her house wearing a mask, he decides to take her up on her offer.

Together, Aly and Josh live out their darkest fantasies, unaware that Aly has captured the attention of someone else. Someone with far more sinister intentions than a little light stalking. As Josh turns from predator to protector and the stakes heighten, he must ask himself how far he’s willing to go for the woman he’s obsessed with.

Lights Out is a fast-paced dark romance with morally grey characters. Some themes and scenes may be disturbing to readers. Please check the content warnings at the beginning of the book.

Tropes: Stalker romance / Morally grey MMC / Masked stalker / He falls first / Black cat x golden retriever / Kink friendly 

 On the other side of town, in the dark glades, under the rain…

Macon is the oldest. Thirty-one. Ex-Marine. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smile.

Army is twenty-eight. A single dad with the most beautiful green eyes. He has no idea who he is, if not a Jaeger brother.

Iron will be in prison soon. You’d never think it to meet him. He’s a nice guy, actually. But he can’t stop reacting to everything.

Dallas is the one I hate. Twenty-one, cruel, and selfish. He takes and then throws away whatever’s left.

And Trace is mine. Or he was for about two seconds. No one can tame him for long.

Not that I ever wanted to. It was fun, but now I need to go home. Back to my side of the tracks. Away from the swamps and these men. To my parents’ big house. On my clean street. Where I’m never dirty or messy or hot. And I will. I’ll leave first thing tomorrow morning. I just want to crash on the couch tonight.

Their house is dark and quiet, everyone else is asleep. Except for one. He sees me crying and comes at me from behind. I let him wrap his arms around my body and hold me tightly. His breath is on my neck, his fingers are in my hair, and he doesn’t stop there.

I don’t think it was Trace. 

 Who am I?

I've forgotten the answer to that question long ago. Ever since I ran from that house, so desperate to escape, I left with only the clothes on my back and socks on my feet. After that day, I've only ever walked in stolen shoes.

Could I be a girl who is searching for the meaning of life in faceless men? They were all so forgettable. Until he came along. He took me under a waterfall and made me forget my name, and in return, I took his instead.

Enzo Vitale.

An enigmatic man who will only ever love the deep sea. Or rather the predators that inhabit it. Turns out, he's not so different than the monsters he feeds. He lured me onto his boat like a fish in the ocean, seeking vengeance for my crime. Had I realized his intentions, and that a massive storm would leave us shipwrecked, I would've run.

Now, I'm a girl who's seeking refuge in a decrepit lighthouse with a man who loathes me almost as much as he craves me. He wants to hurt me, but the old caretaker of the abandoned island may have intentions far more sinister.

It's no longer a question of who I am, but rather, will I survive?

 Love can be a mood killer

Kindra
When I’m invited to the coveted Sinners Retreat, I want just one man on the attendee list: my brother’s killer, the Abattoir Adonis.
On the flight over, my hot, nerdy seatmate gives layover a whole new meaning. But when he turns up at boarding the next day, I’m left breathless. This means he’s a killer too.
And our one-night stand just turned into a multi-day affair.
Ezra
Never meet your hero—you might realize you killed her brother.
On the plane to the island, I discover that I and the woman I slept with last night share some macabre hobbies. I’m ecstatic—until she explains why she’s attending the retreat: to find me.
Keeping Kindra at arm’s length proves harder than I expected, especially when I catch feelings, but lying to her might be even worse than telling the truth.

Ready for a vacation like no other? Grab your copy of Sinners Retreat today!

Tropes: Black Cat x Cinnamon Roll, they’re both serial unalivers, nerdy but murdery MMC, plus-sized, tough FMC, one-night stand gone wrong (or right?), forced proximity, dark humor

Although this dark rom-com is "DIET" Lauren Biel, it still has adult themes. Please read responsibly!

 One unforgettable night. One extreme haunt. One chance to push my limits.

Armed with a safeword and a waiver, I head into the most viral extreme haunt in the city, ready to embrace the thrill with three friends by my side. As a horror fanatic, I’m confident I can handle whatever twisted scenarios await us.

But when the line between fantasy and reality blurs, I quickly realize I’ve made a terrible mistake.

What begins as a thrilling challenge soon spirals into a nightmare. The safeword doesn’t work, and I find myself trapped in a dirty warehouse, pursued by two masked men who see my fear as part of their twisted game.

They won’t let me go.

And as the terror intensifies, I can’t help asking myself…do I really want to escape?

Please read the content warnings at the beginning of the book. This book is dark, with content that could bother some readers. HAUNT is a short, spicy Halloween novella. It’s MMF, and doesn’t end with a cliffhanger. It is extremely dark.

 One girl…Three men…Fourteen days of HELL! What starts as an inspirational getaway, soon goes horribly awry for up-and-coming writer Maddison Carter, who after renting herself a quiet cabin in the woods to work on her latest novel, finds her evening suddenly interrupted by the arrival of a mysterious stranger at her door...
Not only is Maddison about to have every strength she’s ever known tested to the limit, but she will also discover a side of herself willing to do just about anything to survive!

Get ready for a new kind of home invasion...

READER'S PLEASE BE ADVISED: This is an extremely dark revenge horror book, one that is NOT for the faint of heart!(Contains triggers! Read with caution 18+) 

 They used to be my safe haven.
Now they’re my tormentors.
But during a senior year party, everything changes. The three boys who’ve taunted and bullied me for almost my entire time at Pemberton University are hellbent on giving me my ultimate punishment.
Punishment for what? I don’t know. But once I’ve paid for whatever they think I’ve done, they’re not planning on letting me go, no matter how hard I fight against them.
But I’m not as weak as they think I am. They’ve promised to make me regret ever being born, but I can do the same to them.
In fact, I’ll do everything I can to ruin them the way they’ve ruined me.

Ruined is a dark reverse harem bully romance that takes place in a college setting. It's the first in a set of interconnected standalones but can be read by itself. Please heed the content note at the front of the book. 

I’m twenty-six years old, and I want to die. 

Instead, I wake up in a hospital with my brother weeping over me, and a male nurse with cruel eyes and a morbid sense of humor watching my every move.

Next thing I know, my brother’s sent me to Harlow Sanctum, an unorthodox rehab that rooms people together based on treatment plans—and my roommate is none other than the man with the harsh glare I met the day prior.

I crave death. He craves life. 

Can two people like us cure each other? 

Three of them, one of her, and a remote cabin in the woods. Let the hot, winter nights ensue...
Tiernan de Haas doesn't care about anything anymore. The only child of a film producer and his starlet wife, she's grown up with wealth and privilege but not love or guidance. Shipped off to boarding schools from an early age, it was still impossible to escape the loneliness and carve out a life of her own. The shadow of her parents' fame followed her everywhere.
And when they suddenly pass away, she knows she should be devastated. But has anything really changed? She's always been alone, hasn't she?
Jake Van der Berg, her father's stepbrother and her only living relative, assumes guardianship of Tiernan who is still two months shy of eighteen. Sent to live with him and his two sons, Noah and Kaleb, in the mountains of Colorado, Tiernan soon learns that these men now have a say in what she chooses to care and not care about anymore.
As the three of them take her under their wing, teach her to work and survive in the remote woods far away from the rest of the world, she slowly finds her place among them. And as a part of them.
She also realizes that lines blur and rules become easy to break when no one else is watching.
One of them has her. The other one wants her. But he...

He's going to keep her.

*Credence is a full length, stand-alone romance suitable for readers 18+. 

 She betrayed him, and now he wants revenge against the foster sister who became his forbidden obsession the second he laid eyes on her. After she sends him to prison for years, he’s free and ready to haunt her.

Everything about Olivia belongs to Malachi Vize.
Her mind
Her body
Her soul
Her fear
Her pain

On Halloween night, he can no longer lurk in the shadows. All he has left to own is her heart, even if he needs to take it. 

This story comes with extremely triggering content. Please read the "Content Warning" page.

 A beautiful and provocative love story between two unlikely people and the hard-won relationship that elevates them above the Midwestern meth lab backdrop of their lives.

As the daughter of a drug dealer, Wavy knows not to trust people, not even her own parents. It's safer to keep her mouth shut and stay out of sight. Struggling to raise her little brother, Donal, eight-year-old Wavy is the only responsible adult around. Obsessed with the constellations, she finds peace in the starry night sky above the fields behind her house, until one night her star gazing causes an accident. After witnessing his motorcycle wreck, she forms an unusual friendship with one of her father's thugs, Kellen, a tattooed ex-con with a heart of gold.

By the time Wavy is a teenager, her relationship with Kellen is the only tender thing in a brutal world of addicts and debauchery. When tragedy rips Wavy's family apart, a well-meaning aunt steps in, and what is beautiful to Wavy looks ugly under the scrutiny of the outside world. A powerful novel you won’t soon forget, Bryn Greenwood's All the Ugly and Wonderful Things challenges all we know and believe about love.