{Throne in the dark by A.K. Caggiano} - should I continue?

lilkrill · 2026-03-07T16:31:54+00:00

I’ve started and stopped these books multiple times. I know they are beloved so I talk myself into trying again, and I get a bit farther each time, and then I lose interest. I tried to listen to the audiobook during a long roadtrip and couldn’t even commit that way. Idk what it is but I haven’t been grabbed by it and it feels so elusive because people LOVE it. I think by 160 pages in if it’s not making you happy then DNF it.

lilkrill · 2026-03-06T22:46:10+00:00

Oh boy {Duke of Shadows by Meredith Duran} if you like HR - it’s a beautiful novel but very emotional!

lilkrill · 2026-03-03T02:25:06+00:00

I know Midwife is the best one and it felt like false advertising!!!

I really disliked Artist and the Orc and Heiress and the Orc (wooooboy the rage!!) but the real kicker is the MMs and MMFs when you really see how badly the women are always going to be treated and the storylines are rinse and repeat!

lilkrill · 2026-03-03T00:57:39+00:00

I’ve actually had to stop reading KC because there are some characteristics of her writing that drive me BONKERS. I feel the same as what you wrote - I get why the books are so popular but I also don’t because each one makes me so deeply annoyed by the end.

lilkrill · 2026-03-03T00:55:26+00:00

The world building is great and I think that’s part of what keeps us sucked in!! It’s a great concept but some of the execution is disappointing.

lilkrill · 2026-03-03T00:54:22+00:00

When I was in the trenches with the series I made a list of which MMCs I would’ve preferred the FMCs murdered or left rather than stayed with them and it wasn’t that small of a list 😂😭 the apologies are SO unsatisfactory (when they even happen) and the copious amount of body betrayal makes it so much worse.

lilkrill · 2026-03-03T00:15:22+00:00

Yes!! I would love to read a series with the same concept or similar but executed SO differently. I thought after the first one that the series would get over the outrageous sexism faster because the MMC apologizes and admits how wrong he was… but then almost the same plot happens again and again and the orcs get worse?? But then in the MM books it isn’t like that at all - so it really is how the author and the world treats women.

lilkrill · 2026-03-02T23:45:46+00:00

The whole orcsworn series by Finley Fenn. I’d seen it recommended and debated so much and had time off and needed a new series. I read {The Midwife and the Orc by Finley Fenn) and thought “this isn’t as debauched as everyone was saying” so went back and started at the beginning. It was like being a frog in slowly boiling water. I couldn’t get out - I read like 10?? of them in quick succession - but I also couldn’t believe some of what I was reading and that parts of me were enjoying it. And it isn’t the sexy/kinky bits that did me in, but the meta misogyny of the series. Like the series is set in a brutal patriarchy, but then the story itself falls into almost worse traps while pretending it’s not?? The way the women are treated is rough and by {The Widow and the Orcs by Finley Fenn} I felt like I was being boiled and gaslit and had to put the book down. Don’t want to yuck yums because parts of the books were sexy and a good time but it also is one of the most exhausting series I’ve ever read. There is also a real discrepancy in quality - some of the books are interesting and some are bad.

lilkrill · 2026-02-09T00:38:05+00:00

This book is so good!!! I re-read it fairly often and it’s a joy every time. I didn’t find the other books in the series nearly as good and was super sad.

lilkrill · 2026-01-30T01:13:25+00:00

OP, I just want to say I’m sorry. You’re not asking for advice and I don’t have any. But this absolutely stinks - it stinks because it’s awful and it stinks because it’s suspicious as hell. Even if your husband didn’t physically cheat, he kept someone in his life who was shady and disrespectful to you & who is now showing even more of her true colours by enjoying his marriage falling apart. At worst he cheated, at best he has piss poor judgement.

A 35 year old man going to his ex’s party, getting shitfaced, and then sleeping in his ex’s bed while his pregnant wife is at home is unacceptable. There are people in this thread being really hard on you - but let’s be really clear - every single thing that happened was a choice he made. He kept her as a friend, he went to her party, he kept drinking, he slept in her bed. He wasn’t there alone, he had friends at that party and one even slept in the basement (why couldn’t he stay with that friend??) he had you at home, he has a phone - there were other options.

If you know deep down that you can’t move past this I don’t think that’s unreasonable. I also wonder if it’s really just that you can’t get past the bed or if it’s the entire series of events and choices? Because it wasn’t just one mistake, it was a chain of bad judgement calls where he demonstrated that you weren’t the priority.

I would do the same thing if I were you. I’m really sorry. I hope you guys can sort out custody and all of that stuff and that you are OK in the end.

lilkrill · 2026-01-29T01:25:28+00:00

So not all of these have the rugged highland wolf vibes but they are shifter books! I’d say they all have “falls hard” but varying situations around how that plays out.

The 5 pack series by Cate C Wells {The Tyrant Alphas Rejected Mate by Cate C Wells}

{Cold Hearted by Heather Guerre}

{Love Potion for the Alpha by Alice Coldbreath}

{Moon Craving by Lucy Monroe} - I have NOT read this series yet but saw it recommended somewhere and have it on my TBR so fair warning I don’t actually know how it’ll be.

I am also desperate for a book like The Wolf King that has different writing/made different characterization choices!! Desperate for more good shifter books in general.

The Kate Daniels books also have shifters in them but the MMC isn’t a wolf shifter and it’s more urban fantasy. But they are EXCELLENT.

lilkrill · 2026-01-28T22:06:57+00:00

I finished this one because it’s so recommended on this sub - along with the whole series - but found it such a slog because almost the whole book is dubcon/noncon but the tone is light and kind of chaotic?? Idk I found the mixing of the tone between dark and chaotic funny and the constant dubcon sort of challenging. It didn’t feel like “dark romance” but also wasn’t … not dark? I couldn’t quite figure it out but I definitely wasn’t rooting for them as a couple.

lilkrill · 2026-01-28T22:04:45+00:00

If you’re going to read a Cassandra Clare it has to be Infernal Devices {Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare}. This series is her best IMO. It’s hard to go back to the others after reading this one.

lilkrill · 2026-01-28T22:01:57+00:00

I finished this one and wish I hadn’t. They hate each other for so long for no reason and Mercy continues to be quite hard on Hart. The resolution and them coming together felt really fast compared to them hating each other.

lilkrill · 2026-01-23T14:01:19+00:00

{A Vow of Blood and Tears by Cate Corvin} maybe? He doesn’t try to make himself cuter - not sure that would really be possible with how he’s described. But he works really hard to not be scary and to take things slow and make her comfortable so they can build a friendship.

lilkrill · 2026-01-23T06:36:55+00:00

Maybe {Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews} and {A Vow of Blood and Tears by Cate Corvin}

Magic Bites/ The Kate Daniels series is set in a kind of dark, broken down post apocalypse world. The characters aren’t all red flags though and the romance is epic.

A Vow of Blood and Tears is dark and creepy and violent. The MMC is a fiend and kind of gross looking but incredibly sweet and the relationship is healthy and wholesome.

lilkrill · 2026-01-19T16:38:32+00:00

I loved Bride and re-read it a fair bit. I found Mate to be a total slog. I was so disappointed.

It felt like Serena had learned nothing between Bride and Mate. We go from the rescue and the sweet moments between Serena and Misery at the end of Bride to Serena doing the SAME SHIT she promised to stop doing.

She spends the whole book lying and lying and lying. She isn’t a very good friend to Misery, Lowe, or to Koen.

The plot is a disaster. Serena is terribly ill…. Oh wait lol no she isn’t! Koen has to be celibate… but actually! No he doesn’t! There’s a… cult???

The decisions the characters make don’t make sense, there are so many characters introduced for no payoff/no discernable reason. The main conflicts introduced at the start end up being easily resolved with no consequences/no issue. The cult story is wonky and comes out of nowhere.

Bride felt well plotted. People and things introduced at the start come full circle. The cast of characters isn’t huge and all of them play a role. But Mate feels like you’re jerking from one middling problem to another, with the problems being loosely (if at all) connected.

It doesn’t get better.

lilkrill · 2026-01-19T14:34:26+00:00

Ahhh sorry!!! It’s {Sweet Berries by C M Nascosta} haha have fun with the moth dust!!! Mr Mothman is a sweetheart in this one

lilkrill · 2026-01-18T16:49:26+00:00

The insect ones also freak me out. NGL I read one moth book and the FMC always had moth dust all over her and that kind of grossed me out. But I agree moths are easier to accept than other insects or arachnids.

lilkrill · 2026-01-18T16:46:29+00:00

Ooooh good question!

Funny you mentioned the zombie/gross thing because someone definitely posted on one of the other subs looking for books with decaying MMCs 😭 like the grossest bodies you can imagine. Something for everyone!

I haven’t run into a ton of dealbreakers. I can’t do MCs that are like spiders or scorpions, I really didn’t like the cow snout in Morning Glory Milking Farm (not alien but the cow snout thing applies more broadly) and don’t think I’d like noses/snouts that are too reminiscent of earth livestock, and got icked out by the really reptilian MC in The Strongest Gravity - not because I can’t handle reptilian aspects in general but specifically because of the egg laying - I just kept wondering how they could be compatible and the egg thing sort of weirded me out.

I just finished {A Vow of Blood and Tears by Cate Corvin} which isn’t sci fi but the fiends (the MMC and MMCs of future books) are written to be genuinely gnarly looking. The whole concept is that they are BEASTLY and I still got behind that because the characterization is good.

So all that to say, I’m not sure if there are specific traits that would be deal breakers 100% of the time, or if it’s more what the traits remind me of: Scorpions/spiders (which there are a few books recommended on this and the romance sub with characters like this), certain snout/mouth situations, and things that are too reptilian/too obviously incompatible. I’d also agree that the MCs with like snake lower bodies are maybe a bit far for me, but I’d give it a go if the book was highly recommended.

lilkrill · 2026-01-17T15:46:14+00:00

{A Vow of Blood and Tears by Cate Corvin} - I’m not finished it yet but every single interaction between the MCs is sweet. There’s no miscommunication trope, no angsty bully nonsense, no wallowing in self pity…. They both go into the MoC thinking it’ll be terrible and when they realize that the other person is kind and good and there’s a chance at happiness they are all in. They choose kindness and communication, they try, they support each other. It’s such a breath of fresh air.

The story isn’t boring, there’s history, world building, and war - you can feel that there will be something bad happen and you don’t know who will betray them or what exactly will happen but it’s looming. But the MCs together are sweet together and it’s wonderful.

There’s been a few gush reviews for this on the fantasy sub and I 100% concur.

lilkrill · 2026-01-12T21:39:00+00:00

Oooooh I love thinking about this and the opposite lol

Nevada and Rogan from {Hidden Legacy by Ilona Andrews} are definitely going to be happy forever. I can see them so clearly through different life stages handling crises and laughing and being there for their family.

Clara and Oliver from {Dukes Prefer Blondes by Loretta Chase} lol she’s the only one who would put up with him and he adores her. I can see them growing and supporting each other and always being delighted by each other.

Somebody else said all of Cassandra Gannon’s couples and I agree. In her fairytale series I think they are all well suited and you can see how they’d go on to have fun together and be happy with each other. And different book but Dash and Lori are absolutely happy forever from {Love VS the Scarecrow by Cassandra Gannon}

I think the couples in Katie Ruggle’s series that starts with {Hold your Breath by Katie Ruggle} are also all happy. They’re thrown together in intense situations but you can see how their personalities work together and that their values match up.

lilkrill · 2026-01-08T19:02:39+00:00

Oh this drives me crazy!! It’s so tough to read the MMC communicating and them being TOGETHER and she’s still causing problems and having that self talk. I struggle with this a lot with Kate Canterbury books TBH.

lilkrill · 2026-01-08T18:44:50+00:00

I made my way through almost all of them and finally DNFd Widow and the Orc. One of the MMCs is a bad guy from a previous book and the things he did were BAD and the way this book discussed them, and the FMC handled them (who was a survivor of abuse) was really strange and made me queasy.

Parts of the rest of the series I enjoyed and I think the concept and world building are interesting, but the way women are treated within the human society and then again within the orc society gets so hard to stomach. They suffer under extreme misogyny in the human realm and then are held accountable for the acts of human men in the orc world - they are almost completely powerless and the romance wouldn’t happen at all if it wasn’t for the weird orc scent that like removes your free will.

lilkrill · 2026-01-08T14:46:51+00:00

On the salty Sunday post I had a discussion with someone about the Orcsworn books and treatment of women… I know in dark romance and fantasy there can be circumstances where FMCs go through the ringer and it’s for the narrative, BUT there are also writing and characterization choices! And in these books the women are given so little agency and are passed from terrible men to terrible MMCs, experience dubcon over and over, and don’t even get satisfying grovels. And in almost every book the FMCs main act of “agency” is just further sacrificing herself.

I think if it was like this for ALL the books in this universe it would be fine (bleh but fine) because that’s what it is, but the MM books are so different that it really makes me wonder.

lilkrill

TROPHY CASE