Romance at a Glance is a podcast where hosts Bridget and Shani review romance novels and interview some of romance’s biggest authors diving into candid conversations about life, relationships, and sexual desires. Expect 100% honest reviews, spontaneous singing, life lessons, indecent anecdotes, and bawdy humor. Leave us a rating and review on iTunes.

Fear Me Ratings at a Glance

Worth the Read?

Shani: ⭐ - Would have DNF if I hadn’t

Bridget: Read the wrong book!

Heroine Rating:

Shani: 🍑

Bridget: 🍑🍑

Hero Rating:

Shani: 🍆

Bridget: 🍆

McDreamy to Mc Steamy:

Shani: Mc. Fuck outta here.

Bridget: McFlipFlop

Classy to Nasty:

Shani: Vanilla though non-consent and rape there

Bridget: Bodice Ripper

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Full Review of Fear Me

Book Title: Fear Me 

Author: by B.B. Reid

Narrator/ Available in audio:   Ava Erickson (Great job) 

Part of a Series: (Yes or No) - Yes  (Broken Love #1)

Genre: Dark Romance/ New Adult

Books in Broken Love series should be read in order:

Book 1: Fear Me - Keiran & Lake

Book 2: Fear You - Keiran & Lake

Book 3: Fear Us - Keenan & Sheldon

Book 4: Breaking Love - Dash & Willow

Book 5: Fearless - Keiran & Lake

Synopsis: 

Bridget: This is a story of a girl, who cried a river and drowned the whole world, while they sat and saw her bullied every day, by an absolute psycho, named Keiran.  This is the story of a girl, who fell in love with her bully one year after he thought she framed him, he came back to torment her, and take her virginity.

Shani: Keiran Masters and Lake Monroe

Favorite parts of the book:

Bridget: Faints when she hears he is coming back

This book is fucking long

He thinks that she framed him and sent him to juvie

She didn’t - she tells him this repeatedly - he doesn’t believe her, even though as he describes she is a angel and he can always tell when she’s lying until way later in the book when actual nasty dude trevor confesses before he tries to rape her. 

ALSO - Keiran does rape her. And coerce her to sex with violence against her, and blackmailing to kill her aunt or best friend. The first blow job was super fucked up. Also the knife against her throat - no condom… which they don’t even get plan b for and he’s not worried.  He makes her stop being friends with her bestie willow (who gets entangled with his bestie). The scene where he eats her out at school was super hot.

“Spread your legs and rest your feet on the table edge and before you try to overthink it, let me remind you that we now have ten minutes max before someone comes walking through that door.”

They had some good interludes. 

Generally feel like this book was too long and repetitive. Didn’t feel like we got to the meat of the mystery of why keiran hated her for way too long. Lots of back and forth, i’m standing up for a hot second then immediately caving (i mean rightly so, he’s not a good dude and clearly capable of violence)

Liked her grandma calling them on their shit. - do better next time i see you

Like the mystery, but it unfolded too slowly for me. I was like how the fuck is this going to be tied up in this book. ANd then it wasn't! Cliffhanger alert.

“Maybe because it looks like I’ve been beaten?” I didn’t attempt to hide the disdain I felt. “You came, didn’t you? Many times as I recall.” “You do realize you blackmailed me into sex, right?” “Keep telling yourself that.” He smirked. “You should have stayed away,” I whispered, my eyes lowering.

She said she wanted to get even and then never did anything about it. 

No HEA?! Leaving her for her own good. Pussy ass bitch. Also shouldn’t he be a lung match?

Had some sexy text exchanges and I Was like yes, this is the energy I want to carry throughout, now that he has decided to publicly claim her and stop 

Horrifying childhood - kills people & a little girl (instead of raping her at 8 in a child porno thing) 

She decides to transfer - which actually is a smart decision - and then turns him in!

Shani: Least favorite parts

Why is Lake so Whinie, how did ten years go by and her aunt doesn’t know she’s severely bullied. 

Where is Lake’s backbone? She eventually gets one and it comes and goes. 

I’m not a fan of YA or highschool age kids. 

This book was too long AND theirs a sequel with the same characters! 

Let us know what you think on Instagram, we are always chatting it up with y’all over there.

Heroine Rating:

Shani: 🍑

Bridget: 🍑🍑

Hero Rating:

Shani: 🍆

Bridget: 🍆

McDreamy to McSteamy:

Shani: Mc. Fuck outta here.

Bridget: McFlipFlop

Classy to Nasty:

Shani: Vanilla though non-consent and rape there

Bridget: Bodice Ripper

Favorite Lines in the Book:

Are we ever going to talk about it? … there is nothing to talk about. I stared at him incredulously what if I get pregnant? A baby at my age would be the biggest threat to my future. Pregnant with keirans baby would be the biggest threat to my santity.

“Spread your legs and rest your feet on the table edge and before you try to overthink it, let me remind you that we now have ten minutes max before someone comes walking through that door.”

Favorite Review:

Shani:

Good god, what the ever loving hell have I just read??

Let me begin with the positive things here. What did I like?

Silence. Crickets are chirping in near distance. The wind is whistling. Hay bales are rolling around.’

Okay, my brain is drawing blank. Moving on.I love dark and gritty books but this book definitely wasn't for me. I understand that it's fiction and not everything has to be realistic, but come on. The story seems completely unbelievable and ridiculous to me. The heroine is too stupid to live. The only thing this book made me do was roll my eyes A LOT. (less)

Bridget:

• Jodi Bibliophile • rated it 4 stars

WHAT THE BLOODY FUCK!!!

Holy fucking shit I've been on one hell of a fucking ride!

Jesus fuck I'm all over the place!

I mean I was fucking warned about this fucker of a book but I didn't quite believe it...untill now.

Fuck me I've lost sleep from this fucking story!!! I'm talking angst and a whole lot of fucked up in the most hottest fucking way!!

Keiran Fucking Masters! FUCK MY FACE I want to fucking mount you!!!

You are one of the most cuntish characters I've ever met and yet I still want to choke on your dick!....

Worth the Read?

Shani: No, would have DNF ⭐

Bridget: Nope! probably would have DNF’ed if we weren’t reviewing for the podcast ⭐, gave it ⭐ ⭐ because I finished it.

Book Recommendations:

Full Podcast Transcript - Fear Me By B. B. Reid

With me as always is my cohost Shani.

Bridget, I'm good. I've been itching and chomping at the bit to talk about this book with you.

I finished it. Disclaimer, I normally finish these books well in advance because as soon as we get the list, I want to read all ten books immediately. I was painting my entire house so I did not have time to read it. Shani's like, "I'm going to be able to record." I was like, "I'll read it during the day." This book was long. Fear Me by BB Reid is the book we're talking about. It is a long book. It is longer than I thought it was going to be. I did not finish until 9:00 PM. It is all happening, Shani.

It's fresh. Let's do this, Bridget.

---

We are talking about Fear Me by BB Reid. I do have to say that, Shani, I was into the cover. This book was recommended to us by our fair friends on Instagram. Thank you all for your recommendations. If you want to recommend books to us in the future, you can do so by leaving us a review or by hitting us up on Instagram and letting us know in future seasons. We always need more books.

I liked the cover, the abs with the hood, with the darkness. The book is called Fear Me, which I feel is a good dark romance title. I like that you can't see the face. You see the abs. What's going to happen, Bridget? We don't know what's going to happen. I'm feeling tingly in places by the anticipation. The title was good for a dark romance. The cover was good. The thing about it is it's a guy on the cover with his abs out but his face is covered and the hood is down. It gives you that suspense feel.

The shadow is all around him.

This is how you take a cover that's the same as every other cover. Make it your own, make it fit your genre and what your book is about. I support that six-pack.

I would like to say that this is book number one of the Broken Love Series. However, I thought that when I read the description and read some of the reviews that this was going to be a book about this couple and then each book was going to feature the subsequent friends. It turns out not the case. This book and book 2 feature the main couple and then book 3 is the next couple. They got me. We try not to do that on the show because we want to be able to get the HEA vibes. We did not succeed in this. At 70% of the way through, I was like, "How the fuck are they going to wrap all this shit up?" I was like, "There's no way we're going to get through all these plot points." When it ended, I was like, "I see what you did there." You got to 70% were like, "I can't get through it." Tell me before we get too far about the narrator in the audiobook.

I loved the narrator of the audiobook. Her name was Ava Erickson. I thought she did a great job. I thought about her as she was reading. I like the dynamics of her voice. I also like how she does the men. I support this narrator. You should follow some of her other works and see what else she's got out there.

The second book is split POV. I wonder if in the second book it's Ava and then a male narrator. You get the male and the female character POVs in the second book to get into Keiran's head, which I think would have been helpful in this book.

I don't know how I feel about that only because Ava was the one running this book. If I were to go straight into the next book and then to have the split POV, I'd be a little bit like, "What's happening?" I don't know. We'll see.

Let me recap. Book one is Keiran and Lake. That's their names. Book two, also Keiran and Lake. Book three is his cousin/brother Keenan and Sheldon. Book four is Dash and Willow. Dash is their best friend and Willow is Lake's best friend. It was a teen romance that everyone falls in love with all the best friends, which I was fine with it. I think in fiction, I love it. In book five, we're back to Keiran and Lake again. I don't think at the end of book two they're getting a satisfying HEA yet.

They're only 17 and 18 years old.

What are they going to get?

What's the happily ever after? Are we going to Chuck E. Cheese? What's happening?

He's going to get over his nonsense, face the demons of his past. They're going to go to college together. He's going to go to the NBA. She's going to become a famous artist or a writer. They're going to live happily ever after and have a gaggle of babies. Have you never read romance? Always you have to have a gaggle in order to be happy.

It's funny because I went to my cousin's house. She has a gaggle of children and I was like, "My home is so quiet. I can't wait to go home."

I feel that every night when my children are asleep. I'm like, "What is this blissful energy in the house where I can hear myself thinking about things?"

Be honest, Bridget. How many times a year do you look at your husband and go, "It could have just been us?"

Three times a week, especially during the quarantine. It wasn't so noticeable when there are other things going around when we could go visit family or other people could babysit. We're lucky that our daycare didn't shut down for more than a few weeks but we can't drop them off with people anymore to like, "Aunt and uncle want to see them for an afternoon. Someone's in town. Go to the grocery store by yourself for an hour." There's none of that anymore. There's no separation aside from the fact that I get to work during the day while they're at school. I'm working, it's not like I'm getting quality me time. I'm trying to finish my projects and my client shit in a truncated amount of time while they're at school in addition to doing all the other house stuff.

In 2022 when we're allowed to see people again, I think it will be way different. My brother and his wife will be like, "Why don't you drop the kids off for the whole day? Drop them off for the weekend and then we'll drop our kids off to you for the whole weekend.” You can have a whole weekend and that will be a regular thing. We'll go on vacation. When we go on family vacations, there's always an aunt, a cousin or someone who wants to play with little babies. They're so cute when they're not yours. I think that's the hardest thing. I'm sure other people in quarantine feel the same whether their kids are little or big, your partner or your roommate. There's no separation anymore. That is the hardest.

That's why many people like this book on Goodreads. I feel like people are escaping their gaggle of children into this world of being 17, 18 teen eggs world.

As you know, I love teenage television shows, movies. When written or seen in a good way, that first love is a powerful thing to witness. The first time someone lets their heart out. It's new. I think that rush of endorphins and of serotonin that you feel while you watch that and get to be in that story, I love it. It's bliss for me. I totally agree with you. I also think that it's different than anything that normal people, within the boundaries of "normal society" go through. At my high school, we have popular kids and we had rich kids whose parents were powerful. We didn't have a kid who teachers were afraid of.

We didn't have a kid who adults would look the other way when they put a girl over their shoulder and carried her off. The security guards at my school would have been like, "Put that girl down. Detention." I witnessed like everyone else in high school bad behavior by girls and boys and bullying on both sides. Anything that got egregious, especially between guys and girls got broken up quickly. Friends would swoop in and break it up because nobody wanted to go to the principal, get suspended or expelled. That to me was an unbelievable thing. Shani, I'm going to tell you the synopsis of the story.

Let's bring it back because once we get into this, there's no coming back.

This is the story of a girl who cried a river and drowned the whole world while they sat and saw her bullied every day by an absolute psycho named Keiran. This is the story of a girl who fell in love with her bully one year after he thought she framed him, came back to torment her and take her virginity. You're welcome.

First of all, I was not prepared. Second of all, thank you for that, Bridget. That is the only time I laugh when someone sings to me.

At least I didn't stare into your eyes, Shani.

You nailed that. You did an amazing job, Bridget.

That is the story. There's this girl. When she's a child, she is visiting her aunt and goes to the playground. A little boy is trapped on the monkey bars. She had met this new girl and became friends with her. She's going to climb the monkey bars to save him. There are other little boys who are like, "Don't go up there." She's like, "He needs help so I'm going to go." He's like, "You can't go." She starts to climb up. He yanks her off the monkey bars, breaks her arm and she's unconscious for two days. That's the first time they meet. He then proceeds to torment her for ten years. He's incredibly mean and cruel. Every single day she cries at school. He knocks her books out of her bag. He says horrible things and spreads rumors about her. He warns every person in school not to be her friend, no boys to date her. She only has one friend. She has a shitty existence. As she's developing and goes through puberty and stuff, she doesn't understand why she starts to desire him and have this crush on him. She thinks there's something wrong with her and she's twisted.

Meanwhile, we don't get an insight into him until the last chapter of the book. It is 457 pages into this book that we finally get an insight into him. All we know at the beginning of the book is that he's been gone for a year, which was her junior year. She finally stopped being afraid at school, made some other friends, got a small part-time job and was happy. It turns out that he went to juvie. He thinks she framed him for dealing drugs and that it's all her fault. When he comes back, he promised like, "You thought it was bad before, it's going to be worse now. I'm going to own your body and soul. I'm going to take your virginity. I'm going to take everything because you're mine." I was like, "It's dark romance. He's a psycho. Let's go into that world." This is definitely the darkest of the four books we've read so far because he is a real piece of work. The consent in this book is there later but, in the beginning, there wasn't.

I felt bad for her, not only does he take her virginity but he doesn't think of it as rape. He's like, "You agreed to it." The only reason she agrees to it is because he's literally having her aunt followed in another country and says he will have her killed. I'm like, "That's not what consent is." She even says that to him later. She's like, "I don't think I could go to school." He's like, "Why not?" She's like, "Maybe because it looks like I've been beaten." I didn't attempt to hide the disdain I felt. "You came, didn't you? Many times as I recall. You do realize you blackmailed me into sex." “Keep telling yourself that,” he smirked. “You should've stayed away.” I was like, "What?"

You wanted him to be better.

Maybe a lot of manipulative assholes do think that they're not doing something that's wrong. They do think like, "She said yes even though I forced her hand and there was nothing else she could do." I don't know.

Let me start with full disclosure. Why young angsty teen books, things like Buffy. I only watched a few episodes of Buffy, so I don't know if that's my genre.

I was like, "Don't loop Buffy into this. You keep her name out of your mouth, Shani."

I'm still in season one of Buffy. I won't say anything because I'm enjoying it.

Season 2 and 3 are much better than season 1.

What I feel like is book one of any book, we're getting things rolling. Any young adult stuff, angsty stuff like this, it's not my cup of tea. I didn't know if it was or it wasn't but after reading this book, I've decided that it's not my cup of tea because we read that LJ Shen book where the characters were young. They were eighteen years old. First off, the idea of these 17, 18-year-olds don't do anything for me and my brain. Most of the time, I was like, "Where are your parents?"

They're not there. The whole book, her aunt is on a six-week tour for her book and his uncle is not there.

Her aunt was there for the ten years that she's being bullied this entire time. My brain is like, "Where are the teachers? Why are they not doing anything? How was he able to walk in and tell her what she's going to do in the middle of class?" I don't understand. "This is a genre." I'm trying to suspend my disbelief but it's hard to because these are children. In my mind, they're children, which is some people's Jimmy Jam, especially when I look on Goodreads, people are like, "I liked that 17, 18-year-old thing." I'm like, "That's good for you but I don't like the angst that comes with it.” It's because I love a controlled alpha sadist. In this book, there's no consent. I read a lot of books where there's no consent and I'm fine with that because this alpha hero has a controlledness to them and a presence to them. This little boy had none of that. He was going between throwing fits.

The day he hit her with the belt and kept spanking her until she was crying and then kept going and didn't stop, I was like, "Why is she forgiving you for that?" That's crazy. That's assault. I do have to say though, I think this book in general could have lost 30% easily.

I think it could have lost so much. It was so long.

Thirty percent of this book could have gone in the scenes where they were boning. The scene where he ate her out in the light, in the classroom. He brought her to school early, made her take off her underwear, put them in her mouth, crawl over to him, crawl up on the desk and spread her legs for him. He was like, "We're going to stay here until you come whether they come in this room or not. You better give it up for me." This is the energy I would like the book to continue with. I think in general, at least so far in the ones that we've read, dark romances the characters do a lot of bad things. In real life, would I excuse any of them? No.

I would put that man in jail. I would have been like, "This dude is a psycho." In a dark romance, as long as the character can evolve and can shine for that one person. He didn't have to be a nice person to anyone else but he didn't ever fully become nice to her and not nice like he has to be sweetened by her flowers but he's not an asshole to her kind of way. They had some good energy where they were doing those flirty text messages, Shani. At one point, I was like, "I love a flirty text message. That shit sings in my blood." That fell off and I was like, "Where's that? Keep that in. I like that energy."

That was also a weird thing for me that happened where at the beginning of the book, he believes that she turned him in and that's why he was in juvie. It’s partway through the book, which happened in the weird middle where he finds out that she didn't turn him in. He's a little bit nicer to her and she's happy that he's a little bit nicer. She's starting to get a little bit of a backbone but then she starts getting a backbone and then letting go of the backbone. She has a backbone, she stands up to him and then she does it. He's going to kill her and then she's back and she's loving. She's feeling the feelings and then he is going to kill her and kill her aunt. I was like, "You’ve got to pick one."

He was threatening to kill her aunt way too late in the book, I thought.

It’s after they had already made a transition to being better, more of a loving or having a little bit more of a couple.

He claimed her in public. He kissed her. I was like, "It's evolving. The character is expanding."

In front of his friends and stuff like that. He's like, "I will kill your aunt." That's not okay. I thought we moved past that but it did feel like a big regression to me.

Didn’t you think it was weird that he didn't believe her? They all believed that she was the one who turned him in because someone stole her cell phone and made the call from her cell phone using her name with the tip that he had drugs in his locker that he was going to sell. That's why he went to juvie. First of all, she's smart. That would make no sense that she gave her own name and used her own cell phone. Secondly, she tells them all individually, him, his cousin/brother, his best friend, his best friend's girl or his cousin/brother's girlfriend. All of them have been told individually by her. "I did not do this. I did not call. I lost my phone that day. I could not find it. I think someone stole it from me. I had to get a new phone and it wasn't me."

I have a better idea. This is the thing why I didn’t believe that. It’s exactly what you're saying. Why didn't they believe her? One because he was picking up her journal and literally reading it. I can't imagine that she left that out of her journal when she talks about like, "I journal incessantly, I journal all my thoughts and feelings and my feelings about him." You didn't journal that. Not only did you not call the police but who do you think did called the police that you're being accused of it and that you didn't do it? All of that would have been in her journal to me. When he's reading, going through her journal and stuff like that, I'm like, "How are you not coming across that?"

It's funny because I would definitely read another one of her books. There were definitely parts of this book that I enjoyed but I think the book was so long. For me, there are many fucking plot points they set up. First of all, normally in a book, you set up that the other characters are going to get together in future books but in this book, she tried to cram in that the side characters were falling in love and dating and all of their angst within this book but it wasn't from their POV. It was a side. We didn't get to be in their drama because we were still in this drama but it was taking up too much screen time from the main couple.

It would have been better if they had had a real sizzling. Every time they were around each other, they were spewing venom. Both of them were huffing about the other person because there's all this sexual tension which then gets unleashed by the time it gets to their book. I found myself honestly fucking tired halfway through or maybe 60% of the way through. I was like, "When are we ever going to find out about his past?" She kept asking him, "What happened to you? What is going on?" He has no birth certificate, no birth record. Everything's been wiped clean. It's clearly some nefarious and I was like, "Is this some syndicate thing? Are we going into a bully romance but maybe it's shifting into some mafia family, rich people, crime lords or something?"

That was the weird thing for me. I was like, "What's happening here?" They didn’t seem like they were into criminal activity and that it was alcohol. They went back to criminal activity that we didn't know what it was. I was like, "Where are we on the spectrum here?" There was an off comment that they said early on where her radio got broken and miraculously, Keiran beat up this boy and she's like, "I never did find out who broke my radio." They had already explained that he beat up this boy and that this has happened. I was like, "This is predictable."

I feel like that was to show that he has been watching out for her since she was young. I thought it was a useless piece of information in the book. I hated this character of Trevor. I understand that he wants to turn in the guy because he's tired of him getting all the girls and the attention and so he wants to turn him in. That's the bad guy. Why is Trevor constantly going after her? There was a part in the book where I felt because of Keiran's behavior towards Lake made it so that Trevor felt he could also be an asshole to Lake. He kept coming back. She wasn't even alone. She was with her friends and things like that. He's coming to grab her and take her somewhere.

He was in cahoots with Mr. Martin.

It didn't make sense to me that out in the middle of the blue or in public spaces, he would try to get her. When she was in the bathroom, that is a public space, when she's with her friends.

He was trying to rape her in the bathroom.

He kept coming. It felt forced to me. His character felt super forced and she was always being saved by Keiran. That's how we were supposed to fall in love with him as a good person for her because he's an asshole but he's an asshole for her. I don't know. I couldn't, Bridget.

What did you think of Sheldon?

Keenan's girlfriend. She was the one who was trying to make friends with her at the beginning of the book and she's been the popular crowd but she was like, "I like you. I dig you." I liked where that character was going.

I thought she was one of the best developed of the side character.

She was the sanest of any of the characters.

She wasn't that sane because she saw her handcuffed in the bedroom and was like, "Are you okay?" She leaves her there. I was like, "Bitch, she is not okay, un-cuff her. What the fuck is going on?"

Out of the group of these insane individuals.

That's fair. She's the best.

She was the best because it made no sense to me, Bridget.

I liked that she also was anti-type. When you first have her character described, she's a popular cheerleader who's in this very PDA, heavy relationship with the popular dude who runs in this bad boy crowd. It turns out that she's kind and befriends Lake, is her champion and will defend her to Keenan and Keiran. It's like, "Back off. You guys are being assholes." I lied her character. I would like to see her book with Keenan in the future.

I am skeptical because the way this author wrote Lake, I was annoyed. She was so waffly but honestly, she had no backbone. There are moments where she's supposed to try to get a backbone but it only lasts about two seconds ever.

Did you see that three different people? Dash, Keiran and Mr. Martin all said at some point, "He's going to have trouble with you. You're spicy because you're talking back." I was like, "He doesn't have any trouble with her. What are you talking about? He says one thing and she shuts down." It's like, "I'll be your sex doll."

I'm not opposed to her being his sex doll but let's lean into the sex doll then. The half fighting didn't make any sense to me and even in her inner monologue where she's wrapping herself up and she's like, "I’ve got a backbone." The author spends her time telling us how much of a backbone she's got and now she's over it. Two seconds later, she's under him again.

I don't feel like she ever accepted the fact that she liked to submit to him in the book. I felt like every time they fucked, she was like, "I love what's happening here." He said to her numerous times, "You like it when I give you commands. You like it when I dominate you. Look how wet you are on my fingers. How many times you come on me?" I don't feel like she ever fully owned, maybe book two. I don't feel like she ever fully owned what that is for herself. She's also eighteen years old. This is a bully romance. He's been mean to her for ten years. It's fresh romance.

I want to state that there's no reason for their love story to go past one book. They don't have enough substance as characters to go beyond one book for me. There are three books for them. There's one coming up and then it skips to two with the friends. There's a third one at the end and why? What life have they lived?

The next book is going to be about his past coming back. My assumption is it will be about them as a couple against his past.

That could have been all in this one long-ass book that she put out.

First of all, the book could have been shorter in general but I also think even if you did two books with them, they could have each been a tight 300 pages. This one was almost 500 pages or something.

It's almost 500 and all over the fucking place.

It's all over the place. I had so much trouble because the part that I thought was intriguing was clearly he had this horrible childhood. Something horrible happened to be dropped off at eight, doesn't ever speak to his uncle who took him in, clearly has a lot of violence in him and is willing to use and wield the violence casually, comfortably like he grew up on it. He mentioned things throughout the book. You get little nuggets of, “I wasn't with my mother. I didn't know her. I was with other people.” Later she overhears him say, “The people who owned me.” You get little nuggets but you don't find out until literally the last chapter that he was sold by his father to evil people and they trained him as a child to kill people, kill other kids, kill adults, all sorts of terrible things.

I'm not mad at that storyline of him being a trained killer. However, hear me out. If I was a person who trained kids to be killers, the number one thing I would train them to do is shut the fuck up about it. Every ten seconds, he was like, "I will kill you. I will kill your aunt. I will kill everyone." He takes the two friends, Trevor and then the girl who turned him in and kills them.

I don't think he killed them.

I don't think so either because the way that she writes the books and sets it up, I don't think she's going to make it be him but Lake turns him in at the end of the book for having killed them.

I thought it was some below weakness, frankly. This is where you draw the line, granted drawing the line at two people getting burned alive. Honestly, in my brain, her, Willow and Sheldon but especially Sheldon and Lake reminded me of mafia wives. Sheldon is the mafia wife who grew up in the mafia families, knows the culture, knows it all. Lake is the girl who's fell in love with this guy and finds out that he's part of an organized crime. She doesn't know the rules and so she's like, "Should we help them?" The mafia wife is like, "No, they’ve got this. We don't want to know. We don't ask questions.” That was Sheldon's main thing like, “I don't ask questions."

Her boyfriend was the one who was like, "We have to drop her off because I don't involve her in any of this stuff." He's the true mafia don whose wife stays clean. That makes sense to me because I think that is how a lot of organized crime families happen where the women are trying to stay alive in a violent circumstance. They look the other way and don't ask questions that they don't want answers to. They're also 17 and 18 years old and I for sure would be like, "No, bitch. I'm bringing over my computer hacker friend. I'm going to find out about your past. I'm going to bury you." I'm going to find something. In the middle of the book, she did say something about like, "I want to get back at them. I want to bury them." That plotline, it was this whole huge moment.

She gave it up in two seconds.

She got that dick in her and she got those orgasms rolling and she was like, "I think he likes me." I think you should have edited out that she was going to make a stand and she's not going to make a stand.

I'm with you with that because she got her friend to hack and things. She's trying to find all the information. He confronts her a little bit and she's like, "I think he could tell when I'm lying or something." I don't know what bullshit she said and then she spilled the whole beans to him. "I was going to take you down." I was like, "Why did we follow this journey for you to tell him that?" I feel like this author was trying to infuriate me in this book. I was so mad, Bridget. If we were not reading this book for the show, this was a D and F for me. I would have not finished this book past the 40% mark. I was like, "What is happening?" When I was done, it's so funny because I wrote this in one of my reviews. Somebody else wrote this. I think three other people I found wrote this. I was like, "What the fuck did I read?"

I liked her grandma. The weird thing is, over the course of the book, there were probably ten chapters or scenes that I liked. In the future, I could see where with a tighter editor and a tighter book. I'm not even a high schooler but I would enjoy this author because she does know how to write certain parts. When they go meet the grandma and the grandma's looking out the window and she's like, "Who are those two hotties you brought with you?" She's fluffing her hair. They come in and the grandma calls them on their shit immediately and it's like, "Do better next time I see you." I was like, "Scorch the earth, grandma."

I totally 100% agree with you. It's been a couple of years since this book was published. I'm hopeful that this author, BB Reid has tightened up her game. The thing is, what this book felt to me was she was writing and making it up as she went along. This also feels like a fan fiction book to me where every chapter you're trying to insert a new thing. It's so much drama so that you can have something to resolve and then it's a novella. This was a Spanish novella, not a small book, that got squished into this story where I'm like, "Why are ten different things happening? What happened to this thing? We never got a resolve for that. What happened to this?" These things can't all be resolved in book two. That's not fair to your readers in book one. There needs to be an arc that's completed in book 1 before you're thinking of a book 2. It makes me angry when authors write book 2 when they did not do a good job in book 1 of giving enough. Book one was incomplete and it was too long. That annoys me a lot.

In my notes, I wrote, “No HEA. Leaving her for her own good. What a pussy ass bitch?” Also, shouldn't he be a long match for his brother? Those are my three end of the book notes. Right at the end, we find that Mr. Martin has been creeping on her for a year.

You knew that it was his brother the whole time.

She mentioned a couple of times that they looked similar but I didn't see it as being a relevant plot point. Maybe it could happen but I didn't know for sure it was going to happen. At the moment, it didn't seem to help or it didn't seem to matter. I was thinking originally, Mr. Martin who turns out to be Keiran's dad is this dude who comes into the gym where she works pretty often and he is creepy. He asked her about school and boys and he's an older dude. She gets the heebie-jeebies and does what every other woman in society does when you're working in a job where you have to interface with people who are creepy. She politely smiles, nods, scans his card and sends him on his way by giving him the bare minimum of contact with her. He later shows up somewhere that she is. Dash gets away from him because Dash is getting a serious creep vibe too.

I honestly thought that in this book, what was going to happen was that he was going to have been the person who broke him but I didn't think it was going to be his dad. That's getting way too complicated. I thought he was going to be a creepy stalker, and that Keiran was going to save her from the creepy stalker or Keiran and his friends maybe. That guy was going to punish her for being with Keiran because he's been stalking her and wanting her. He knows that she let some other boy, "They let someone else inside you," thing and Keiran was going to drive away pissed. She's going to get kidnapped, captured or tied up. He's going to realize his mistake and go back. Either it's going to be too late because it's dark romance. She's already going to have been raped or something bad is already going to have happened but he'll still save the rest of the day. Half the day is ruined but he'll save the rest or he's going to realize his folly right away and turn right back around and save her before anything bad happens. What I thought was going to happen was that he was going to be “run of the mill” creep.

Honestly, the other reason I thought that was going to be run of the mill is because little was revealed about his past for the whole book. It's clearly not relevant. It's relevant only in his character development and explaining why he's an asshole and why he has many emotional problems, doesn't know how to be friends and love people. I’m like, “Why was he never taught any of that?” It's only relevant for his character. I did not think it was going to be his brother. I did not think Mr. Martin was his dad. When he turned out to be his dad, I was like, "What the fuck is going on in this book?"

I feel like I saw that shit coming but the one thing that I did think that was going to happen, that was going to be fucked up is that the girl who was his mom, I thought that he was going to sleep with his mom as a kid. They even said there was a point where they want him to have a sexual situation, do a fantasy.

He was 8 and the little girl was also 8 or 7 because they were doing some pedophile.

They were siblings. I thought that there was going to be something like that in this book.

Do you know who I thought was going to be related?

Who?

I thought Willow was going to be related to Dash because Willow's mom didn't want her dating Dash. She had had an affair with a rich man in town. I was like, "They're going to be siblings. It's so dirty."

You're correct because the mom heard who she was dating and then it was all an automatic no. I'm with you on that. I still think there's something going to come out. I'm not going to find out because I'm definitely not reading any more of this series what so fucking ever.

I might skim some reviews to see what the answer is. I don't think we have a dark romance incest in the season, Shani. To be fair, it's hard to tell what's going on in these books from the descriptions. Maybe we do.

First of all, I rewound so much in this book.

I literally, Shani, fell asleep. I had to take a bath because I was like, "I know I'm not going to fall asleep in the bathtub while reading to finish the last hour and a half of the book." I laid in the bathtub so I won't fall asleep.

Bridget, I fell asleep five different times while reading this book. Not only that, when I was awake, I had to go back and I was like, "Who's talking here? That's the dad." There was a point where they're talking about DNA. His DNA is AB and if a parent has DNA that's A. I was like, "Let's rewind." I rewound many times to figure out the logistics.

The point of it was that Keenan at the beginning, we think is his cousin, his dad's brother's child. We then find out that they share a mother. They're half-brothers. At the very end, we find out that he's not related to the man that he thought is his dad. He is the full-blooded brother of Keiran because the dad and mom's blood types can't make his blood type. He needs a lung because he got shot. I'm like, "Keiran should be a match and needs to give up a fucking lung." That's an obvious solution.

I think as an author, for the clarity sake of your readers, to have a character named Keiran and a character named Keenan, which are only a few letters apart was fucking annoying. Sometimes I was like, "Did Keiran say that or Keenan said that?"

Especially in audio.

It was the worst. I had to rewind to make sure I knew the right person who was talking. I know it's cute, Keiran and Keenan. It's not logistically cute. It was hard for me to keep track of who was talking. There were many things for this book for me where I don't think the young adult or that angsty young new adult see it but I liked it.

We do have some more coming up, Shani.

The thing was some of the first books that I read were JA Huss, which we don't have in this season. I liked the books that I read from JA Huss. They were fucking twisted and they were young. I felt like there was something I don't know to them. I feel like this could be done better in a way that I would enjoy.

Let's talk about the last couple of points of the book.

Would you have felt a little bit better also if they were a little older, even if they were 22?

No, because if they were 22, it would make no sense to me that she saw him ever again. How would he bully her like that? Bully romances only work in high school or maybe college. You have to be in proximity all the time every day.

I feel like if you follow her to college because then there's no aunt in the picture. There are no parents in the picture. They went to jail, they got arrested and nobody was involved in this. I remember being in high school and there was a boy in my class. His dad was the head of the Power Department, FPL in Florida. He was a huge bully in our class. There was a gay kid that I used to have to walk to his class so he wouldn't get beat up. Even that kid, I imagine that's a powerful position for their parents to have, even he couldn't get away with some of his bullshit. I'm like, "What's happening in this?"

That's why I thought they were involved in some organized crime because they talk about how much power his uncle has, how much power Dash's family has. The adults and teachers are afraid. They're not only afraid because they're going to get them fired but they're afraid, afraid. In my mind whether or not this comes through in the future of books, I was like, "They're clearly not just teenager boys. They're clearly the heirs to scary people. The town is where we're not dipping our toes in that shit." That's how I justified it as I read it. Otherwise, I agree with you. She even said in her inner monologue, "You're not going to do anything? Are you going to let him carry me away? What the fuck?" I was like, "That's a good response. What the fuck?"

We're in school.

She goes to him. He tells her after this whole shooting, the brother gets shot. She gets kidnapped by the dad. He's like, "I'm not going to see you anymore and that's how I'm going to solve this." As if it would keep the dad from re-kidnapping her, knowing that he loved her already. That he's not with her made no sense. I was like, "Boys are dumb but fine." She goes to him and screams at him and was like, "You can't do this to me. You can't leave me here after all of this." He's like, "I don't want you anymore," and bounces. First of all, you're a dick. Secondly, I think her response, which was to visit her grandma and cry then stay with her aunt and uncle far away and transfer to that high school was the right response. Good for you, girl. Yes. You transfer schools.

You tell your two best friends, "I love you but not today, Satan. I am fuck out of this high school where no one's going to protect me. People are trying to kidnap me. People are trying to murder me." Her friends were like, "Are you sure?" They should be like, "Good for you, Lake. Get out of this abusive relationship." Sheldon is like, "No, fuck this," and hangs up. You know that she's about to call either Dash or Keiran and say, "She's leaving. You need to fix this." I get where you don't want to lose your friend but also recognize that she needed to leave. I was like, "Good for you. You get a whole point for that because that's the right decision."

There was a scene for me that encompassed all of the delusion. There was a scene where Keiran busted at her with no condom.

After he rapes her on the floor at knifepoint?

He busted that in her. She goes after him and she's like, "Are we even going to talk about this?" I'm like, "Talk about it?" He's like, "There's nothing to talk about." He's correct. There isn't anything to talk about. It is what it is.

She said something like, "There could be a baby." He's like, "I don't give a fuck."

She goes, "What if I get pregnant?" She thinks this in her mind. "A baby at my age would be the biggest threat to my future. Pregnant with Keiran's baby would be the biggest threat to my sanity."

"Get yourself some plan B."

"Why are we not talking about plan B? He has nothing to do with the conversation about plan B." When she's like, "Are we not going to talk about this?" I would have been at the clinic or I'd be at Walgreens already.

I have done that. I didn't get, thank God, raped by someone I was supposedly semi-friends with and dating at this point of the book. I did have a condom break in college and we went that fucking night. I was like, "Everybody get pants on. It's time to go." We went right up to the pharmacist and I bought myself a Gatorade. Plan B, took the pill right then. He says, "You could take it within the first 48 hours." I was like, "I bet you want to take it in the first five minutes. I’m not having your child. No, thank you."

I was like, "Why are you trying to have a conversation with this man? There's no conversation needed. Take yourself to the clinic."

Take yourself to the doctor because he had sex with other people. Honestly, I feel like it was respectful that as he was raping her, he used condoms the whole time. That's terrible. I'm going to hell for that one. Honestly, I was surprised that he used condoms aside from that one instance. If you're already a child killer and you're already clearly going to take this girl against her will, zero fuck. You’ve said, “You belong to me. You’re my possession.”

It's like, “What line are you drawing?”

Maybe he didn't want a baby. I would be like, "I'm buying you the pill or we're going to the doctor and you're going to get some shot so that we don't have a baby."

I would have expected him to be like, "We're going to get plan B now." Pick it up and throw it at her and be like, "Take this shit."

"I don't believe in children and want children in this terrible world. I don't believe in love."

The thing is, he didn't even have to say any of that because there were many times where he did not justify his actions. He just did a thing and was like, "I said so." I felt like he could've thrown it at her and be like, "Take that and that's it. That's the end." That would have fit his character. I thought that this line was delusional, Bridget. I couldn't. There's another line in this book when I say I was on the floor rolling my life away. My partner was like, "What are you doing?" I was like, "I can't believe what I read." There is a point in time where I think Lake's grandmother says, “Love is a battlefield.” She goes, "You're quoting Jordin Sparks." I was like, "Jordin Sparks?"

I thought that was weird too. I was like, "Maybe I don't know whose song that is. It's not the worst thing." Was Jordin spelled wrong too with an I?

I was like, “How did Jordin Sparks’ Battlefield lyric link in it?”

It didn't make sense. She's like, "I'm hip. I'm cool." I was like, "Old people are funny, so it's fine. Let's move on." Honestly for a lot of this book I was like, "Let's move on and get to the plot points." I do not think it can be overstated enough that this book was a hundred pages too long, especially because I read the descriptions of the next book and seeing where the next book is going and how heavily it is about his past, his family and all that stuff then that should have been a bigger thing of this book. We should have found out little details of his life throughout the whole book until the climax of like, "Surprise, dad's alive." To have that all happen all at once towards the end, I was like, "This is not the book we've been reading. We've been reading a different book. We're in a new book."

I felt like I was reading a different book entirely. At the end, she wants to give me all this new information and shit setting up for book two.

Setting up for book two, we have Keenan, who is in the hospital needs a new lung. Keenan and his girlfriend are broken up forever she says because he's been fucking his teacher and the teacher went to visit him in the hospital. She's like, "We're done forever," even though he's presumably unconscious and does not know this fact yet. You have Willow and Dash who've been fucking around but Willow's like, "I'm not going to date you because you're a fuck boy." Dash is like, "I want to be with you but I'm still going to be mean to you and treat you like I'm a fuck boy." I liked the one good piece of advice Lake gives. She tells Dash, "Why don't you be the man that she fell in love with and be nice to her like you were over the summer?” He's like, "Oh."

It's intriguing. Tell me more.

Let's see what else was set up. His dad got away. His dad is at large, that got set up. She is going to transfer schools but Keiran has presumably got called and is going to find out and drag her back. She turned him in and he's in jail for killing two people and burying them alive. This is all within the last two chapters of the book. It's a lot that's set up.

I feel like some of these things are going to happen in this book and they could have been wrapped up and finished in this book. Why do we need this book two? Where is it going? I already feel like on book two you're going to take me on an even dumber roller coaster ride. I'm not here for it. I'm not the one, Bridget.

---

Shani.

As Keiran was raised as a killer, do you think he would be so reckless with his killings where there are witnesses where people have known that? I feel like he was open with it. If I were an assassin, threatening her but also making the two people disappear. She's not on Team Keiran. He's intermittently raping her. She's going back and forth on it. He's trying to blackmail her. I feel like he's incredibly reckless with this. If he was raised to kill her for being a kid, he would be a little bit tighter.

No, I think he would be on the edge of losing it, especially after finding out that he killed his own mother/cousin brother's mother who he loved. That she raised this other boy and didn't come to find him, he's been in normal society for ten years. As Keenan says, he's trying to be the better version of himself but he doesn't know how to be and so he's always fighting not to be the other him. In general, I feel like he could have been more careful. I was unclear. Would he have killed her aunt? That was always the thing for me is I feel like it should have been clear either way. The threat is real. I can commiserate with Lake more and feel more on her side, or the threat is not real. I want to be able to have her recognize that at some point that he manipulated her but that he's not as bad as she thought. He's horrible but he's not level five horrible. He's level four horrible.

I agree with you in the first part of your statement, which is one way or the other. I would love for him to be a level 5 or a level 3 but let's choose one.

It's oscillating back and forth this time.

His friends were trying to put good words in for him. This book feels like it's gaslighting me as a reader. I don't enjoy that feeling. Let's get to our ratings.

What did you think of Lake?

Lake got a big fat one for me because we don't go lower than one.

I gave her a two because she did at the end finally wake up and smell the coffee and removed herself. She had already filed her transfer papers. She had already talked and found a place to stay. That is why I gave her a two. Also, she thought he was a murderer and she turned him in to the police, which I think was straight up bush league but also in going with this character theme I'm like, "Nothing I ever do will make this boy be a good person. He burned two people alive. I’ve got to get the fuck out of here."

I cannot agree with you. I hear what you're saying. I totally agree that I hated that she turned him in at the end of the book.

"You should have bounced. You had a whole year of torment because he thought that you were the one who framed him. Now he knows you're the one who's putting him in jail. He's going to murder you and all your friends."

I wish she had bounced. I wish she had kept that code of silence at that point as the mafia wife.

She was part of the gang. It's not just him. Dash is going to go to jail as an accomplice. Keenan is going to go to jail as an accomplice. You and Sheldon knew all about it. Willow knew all about it. I thought she should have kept her mouth shut for sure but I still gave her a two for trying to change her life.

I did too especially because she didn't say shit to this point. I'm like, "Keep going with that. Don't say shit."

I'm assuming that Keenan also got a one.

Keenan got a big fat one, Bridget.

He got a one from me also. I was tempted to give him a two because there were glimmers but it wasn't consistent enough to patch together into a full operating. I would say if I could edit this whole book down to 100 pages, I could develop a four rating for Keiran if I could take 500 pages to 100. There's enough where I can have them be bad at the beginning. Cut out the scene where he forces her to give him her first blowjob ever. Cut out the fact the first time he takes her virginity, he fucks her all night long. She would not be able to walk the next morning without blood running down her thighs. Keep the possessiveness but not like the “I can't let you see another person.” Keep the part where he warns the basketball team not to look at her or when he growls at his brother even though his brother's hysterically teasing him about it. In 100 pages, I can make you love him, Shani. In 550 pages, I can't do it.

I entered a competition where we had to put together a 60-second movie. The first edit of the movie that I put together was eight minutes. I was like, "Dear motherfucking God, how am I going to take 8 minutes down to 60 seconds for this competition?" I did it frames at a time over the course of many hours. What can I put into the book? What can I put into the visual that will let people infer what I need them to infer without them having to see it? I edited this down to 60 seconds. It's on my Instagram. It's called Everybody Hurts. In that 60 seconds, you get the entire story with no extra bullshit.

I think that what you're talking about is something that many authors need to embrace the fact that they don't need to have these long-ass books for them to be feature-length books. Get it tight and get rid of all the extra stuff that you don't need. There was a line in the book that I almost wrote it down because when it went by, I was like, "Why did you say that?" She had a line that inferred the information and then she stated the information that allowed you to infer the information and then stated it. I was like, "You put one too many sentences here." That happened a bunch of times in the book. I was like, "This makes it longer and you're saying the same thing twice." I wish and hope that authors will start to embrace getting down to that tight 100.

I don't think this book needed to be 100 pages. I certainly think there's enough meat where it could have been comfortably a 250 to 300-page book. I do think that Kindle Unlimited doesn't make a case for authors to edit because they get paid based on how many pages.

I will not read another book from this author.

The people loved this so they're fucking reading all five.

You're getting a reputation for not being that good. You're a middle of the road author.

I know but, Shani, take a moment and appreciate how many five-star reviews she had. She's not a middle of the road author for us but for other people, they love this book. For the niche, she's getting a lot more patrons. I'm saying in general, that model of paying not per book but per page count.

That's disrespectful, Bridget. I don't care what anybody says. You're trying to get more money out of me. You're going to write and lead me on in the story.

I don't know that it encourages them to lead you on. It maybe encourages them to put more plots and things in. I don't think that's obviously a great idea typically because it's hard to build worlds. There are many fantasy authors that I love and there is a ton of plot. There are different courts. There are different fucking politics happening. There's so much going on. Those books are incredibly long but the fabric of it is all woven in a way that you're riveted. I don't think a high school plot can contain that much because they had to bring in an entire other ecosystem of his childhood and these bad people and his dad to sustain any larger story. A high school is high school. There's only so much that you can have happen. There are only many days and years in high school. There are only many things before people are going to college.

She wanted to write a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th book. I felt like book one could have been the story of them coming together, maybe the killing of the two students and them trying to figure out what happened there and the police chase in that moment. That could have been its own snack here, the introduction of the dads and the extra outlined plot. There you go. You’ve got a little burger and fries. I can't imagine what's in book two that it's going to make it so much more riveting to read. We're going to be chasing these same plot lines and there are going to be a lot of them. We're going to try to round out all the plotlines in one book. I felt like you can round out some plotlines in book one and have maybe one that carries over and then you can introduce another one if you want in that book as well. I don't know. It’s a lot. I was super shocked by the number of five-star reviews of the book. This book is almost four stars on Goodreads. I'm like, "How?" I'm not a young adult.

Not only you're not a young adult. I don't think young adults are reading this book. Maybe some of them are.

I'm not a young adult reader. I'm not a fan of the angst of the teen years. When I was a teen, I was not a fan of the teen years. I was always reading books that were ahead.

On TV, I don't mind if it's a regular high school like 10 Things I Hate About You. I prefer mine when it is fantasy or supernatural even though if they're seventeen years old. It doesn't matter that they're seventeen years old. All you need to know is that they're thrust into a situation where they're not prepared. They have to figure out how to fix the world, save whatever, or grow into becoming a queen. They have to figure out who to trust and learn how to trust. Those books aren't so much. Technically, the characters are young but them being young is not based in a modern society youngness at seventeen in a lot of these books. They're supposed to be getting married already or they've already turned down multiple suitors. For me, I don't think of characters like that as being young whereas in this, that's reminding me all the time that they're in high school in English class. I'm like, "I don't care about that so much. I don't care about school as they're already." Visually, I enjoy seeing it more than I enjoy reading it.

The fantasy in those, I think the younger characters are required to have a higher level of maturity or they're forced to gain that maturity quickly in the story. In this, I feel like I stayed in the same maturity level for the entire book and it wasn't one that my brain enjoyed. It was like get it together. It’s like, “Where's your big sister? Somebody needs to step in here.” The thing is, I don't want this to come across that I am not for the dark romance. Honestly, I don't care that there's no consent as a part of the book.

In dark romance, I accept that there may not be consent, that the main characters may have to come back from a no-consent situation where that might happen many times or they might be traded in slavery and sold off. I want to lean into that. The books you're reading before, you're always trying to find a spark of gold in a bad character. I feel like there were some moments where it was supposed to be a spark of gold and a bad character. Lean into that bad character. Let them own that shit. He's not looking for love. You're not doing this. Let him lean into that. Let there be no hope or barely any hope.

Let her love him anyways.

My friend was telling me that there's a book series that's all based on psychopaths. People who cannot love but they want to. The romance is centered around the person choosing to love that psychopath even though they know that purely they are a psychopath. There's no redemption. The love story is that they've come to accept each other exactly as they are. I'm going to read those books next. If you're going to tell me it’s dark romance and the person's going to be twisted, let's go. For this book to me, I felt like he was dark and twisted. They wanted you to try to find redemption but the redemption was not redemptive.

It was too much back and forth. At one point, it was a nice, slow growth. He called her baby for the first time. He kissed her in the hallway and claimed her and then we sharp drop back. When you have that much trauma, it's realistic but it's like, "I don't want realism. I want you to tell me the story."

I would have accepted it when he starts to be a little bit nicer to her. He didn't have to go full nice but there was a shift. He knew that she didn't turn him in. There was a shift. They had a slightly different relationship. This is the grooming for that mafia partnership that I would have been down for.

He's not actively torturing her and her work anymore. He still doesn't like it when she challenges him. He still is possessive and tells her what she can and cannot do but he also treats her with respect and doesn't make her life miserable. That's all the shift I needed.

I'm not going to say he treats her with respect. I'm going to say he treats her with a slight bit of respect maybe. He's not as psychopathic with her in general because I do like some element of that crazy. I need him to grow a little. I don't need him to be good. That will help me to go on her journey where she starts seeing him more as a little bit more human. That's all the books we've read so far, the asshole with a heart of gold underneath there somewhere. I'll do it but it's all the books we've been reading. I want to see something different and we're going to go in dark romance. I don't care if there's some non-consent. Let's lean into what's happening.

If you know of any dark romances like Shani is talking about that are on Audible, let us know because we are still blogging for the season. If we have to swap out a book last minute, we will. Let us know in Instagram @RomanceAtAGlance. Drop us a review. We'll send you some stickers.

DM us.

Shani, let’s get right to our favorite review. I would like to tell you my first because I thought it was fucking hysterical. I don't agree with her rating but her review made me so joyful. Her name is Judy Bibliophile. She rated it four stars. She said in all caps, "WHAT THE BLOODY FUCK. HOLY FUCKING SHIT. I'VE BEEN ON ONE HELL OF A FUCKING RIDE. JESUS, FUCK THEM ALL OVER THE PLACE. I WAS FUCKING WORRIED ABOUT THIS FUCKER OF A BOOK BUT I DIDN'T QUITE BELIEVE IT UNTIL NOW. FUCK ME. I WANT TO SLEEP FROM THIS FUCKING STORY. I'M TALKING ANGST AND A WHOLE LOT OF FUCKED UP, THE HOTTEST FUCKING WAY. KEIRAN FUCKING MASTERS, FUCK MY FACE. I WANT TO FUCKING MOUNT YOU. YOU'RE ONE OF THE MOST CONSCIOUS CHARACTERS I'VE EVER MET AND I STILL WANT TO CHOKE ON YOUR DICK." I was like, "That is a lot of fun." I approve of that review. Not the content necessarily but the delivery was on point.

I'll say about some of the sex scenes. Some of them I thought were superhot in it if they were delivered in a different context or slightly different packaging. I couldn't get behind him to feel sexy in the sex scene. I know that I'm not feeling it when I want to fast forward through the sex scenes. I wanted to fast forward so bad but I was rewinding so much. I was afraid to fast forward. My favorite review, I put three of them together. I thought these three were funny so I'm going to read all together but this is excerpts of three different people's review. "Good God, what the ever-loving hell have I read?" Let's begin with the positive things here. "What did I like? Silence. Crickets are chirping in near distance. The wind is whistling. Hay bales are rolling around. My brain is drawing a blank. Moving on.” This one said, "I love dark and gritty books but this book definitely wasn't for me. I understand that it's fiction and not everything has to be realistic but come on. The story seems completely unbelievable and ridiculous to me. The heroine is too stupid to live. The only thing this book made me do was roll my eyes a lot."

I did say out loud numerous times, "What? No. What's happening?" I’ve got to push through. I have to finish this book, so I can read it with Shani. Both of my kids were home from school and they're trying to get my attention and get me to play with them. I was like, "This book is so long I have to read. Go play by yourselves."

When you have to push through a book, you know it's a D and F.

Especially me, I feel like I could have read this book at least 30 minutes faster or maybe 45 minutes faster if I was excited about it. It was a slow read for me. For me, it was two stars. Here's the thing. It would have been one star because I would have a D and F but because you had to read the whole book, I was like two stars because there were some moments that I was, "These are okay." Overall, I did not like the book. I didn't hate it but I did not like it, so it's a two-star. It would be a one-star D and F if we weren't reviewing but I had to read the whole thing, so I'll give it two stars.

That is the equivalent of when your friend has a boyfriend and they beat them in the face. You're like, "What the fuck? You should leave that boy." They're like, "He has a good heart." That's the equivalent of giving this book a two-star. This book does not have a good heart. This book is a D and F, Bridget.

I'm saying I had to read the whole thing, so it's two stars for me, Shani. It would have been one because I would have D and F but I did have to read the whole thing, so I gave it two.

I will respect your decision. However, I do not agree and I'm rolling my eyes at you.

Shani, everyone knows that you hate this. That's pretty evident by this.

I want the next one to be better.

That's all we have for you. As you can tell, not one of our favorites but our journey into dark romance continues all season long, so we hope that you'll stick around. If dark romance isn't your thing, I don't know why you'd still be reading but maybe you are. Don't worry. We're going to be in some other fun things coming on up.

Bridget, let's do it. May your books be your lover.

Your hand, your best friend.

Come on. Take us to the dark side.

Important Links:

• Fear Me

• Instagram - Romance At A Glance

• Book Two - Fear You

• Book Three - Fear Us

• Book Four - Breaking Love

• Book Five - Fearless

• Instagram - Marvelous Xe

Welcome to Romance at a Glance, a podcast that uses romance novels to dive into candid conversations about life, relationship dynamics, and sexual desires. 

As hosts Bridget and Shani review books and interview some of romance’s biggest authors, they explore the breadth of the genre, openly embracing the sex, diverse couplings, and taboo in order to create a safe space for listeners to be exposed to different lifestyles, fantasies, and to pique their naughty curiosity.

Expect 100% honest reviews, spontaneous singing, life lessons, indecent anecdotes, and bawdy humor.

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May your books be your lover and your hand your best friend