Colette Rhodes

Luxuria

Sara Poole

“You are very kind, my queen.” Oof. The ‘my’ in front of ‘queen’ really made the title hit differently. It sounded reverent, rather than sarcastic. “My opinion is that you are a marvel—a Hunter among Shades, a human body in the realm of shadows. Everything that you are—as you are—is magnificent, Queen Ophelia. You don’t need to mold yourself into being anything else.”

“He’s the king, Ophelia. He has subjects to rule and order to maintain. He can’t just drop everything to coddle you all the time.” 

“I didn’t want him to coddle me,” I shot back indignantly. 

“Sounds like you did.” Astrid shrugged. “You’re assuming he didn’t care enough to ask you to stay, but maybe he cared so much that he just assumed you would stay, that he didn’t need to ask you.”

Daniella Cuesta

This shit was fire. I would describe my book taste as that song that goes “around the world around the world” in that robot voice cause a bitch is DIVERSE. This was fantastic. I get monster romance recs on tiktok and for the most part they’re as subpar as ice planet barbarians which is extremely average. THIS THO. The creativity is through the fucking roof. It’s about Shades- non humans that feed of the fear of humans and they appear in the dark and are basically those faces you always believe show up when the lights are off. Then there are Hunters- human like people who are able to see Shades and essentially hunt and kill them. Now I won’t go into the reasoning because I truly don’t care, I was here for the romance. 

This was heavy on miscommunication but in the best way. The exposition was a little tedious cause I didn’t care for the characterization but when the protagonist went over into the shadow world I was all in. She’s an outcast in Hunter society because in her teen years she basically drew shadexhunter erotica which is absolutely hilarious. Years later they think she’s the perfect candidate to be the wife of the Shade King as a way to honor a treaty as a solution for both people to stop killing each other. The reason the miscommunication works is because when she arrives she’s extremely attracted to the King and because they can smell emotions he thought she was afraid (like regular humans fear that they feed off of) since she smelled so delicious. It’s probably the funniest miscommunication trope I’ve ever read which deserves AT LEAST 4 stars. 

Tbh I want another book in the perspective of the protagonists sister as she wasn’t thrown out of hunter society but embraced it. She was about to become a part of the Hunter Council before the events of this book which makes that career path obsolete. AND YOU GET A GLIMPSE of the spark between the her and the King’s Captain. I’m already invested.

I liked this a lot more than I anticipated 🤷🏻‍♀️

Gabriella Lanouette

This was a pleasant surprise. 

I went into this knowing absolutely nothing about it and having not read anything by the author before. 

The slight miscommunication trope that would usually drive me crazy was actually enjoyable, and the banter felt real. 

I definitely recommend.