Lights Out

We meet Aly, an ER nurse working in a trauma hospital, which means she sees a lot of fucked up shit on a daily basis. It also gives her brownie points because health care workers deserve the world. Honestly, what the hell would we do without them?

The hospital has a particularly bad day, which takes a toll even on experienced nurses like Aly. To lift her mood, Aly resorts to watching thirst traps of men wearing masks. Kinky, but we love it. One creator in particular has her full attention: The Faceless Man.

Part of me gets it. I mean, aren’t we all guilty of thirsting after shirtless men with tattoos every now and then? But Aly surely is wilder than I am. She LOVES the idea of the Faceless Man actually breaking into her house and standing in her bedroom covered in blood.

Me, personally? I would immediately start hysterically crying if that were ever to happen to me. But hey, whatever works for you Aly.

Aly is also a frequent visitor in his comment section, where she openly shares both her thoughts and her thirst for this particular man. And honestly? I love that for her. A lot of people overthink leaving even the tamest comment under a video, yet Aly is out there posting her kinky fantasies for the world to see.

That’s bold. And I absolutely support it.

In the next chapter we meet Josh. Also known as The Faceless Man. He’s roommates with Aly’s former hookup and has a complicated past. Well, more than complicated. His father is a famous serial killer. Yikes. Would not be proud of that family connection either. To make matters worse, Josh also looks like his father, which is one of the reasons he started The Faceless Man. He wanted the attention without showing his face for fear of people recognizing him. He’s also a bit worried that some of the stuff he does in his videos (like covering himself in fake blood) proves that he inherited some of his father’s traits. And honestly, I do get that thought process. But since we’re reading a Dark Romance, we’re collectively choosing to ignore several red flags for the time being. Which is something I will absolutely come back to later.

So, we know that Josh is The Faceless Man. We also learn that he has the hots for Aly and is stalking her. And since he’s a professional hacker that is ridiculously easy for him. When he discovers that Aly is also frequently commenting on his videos, he starts thinking that she might also be into him. At least a little.

And naturally, he decides the logical next step is to make her fantasies come true and actually break into her house.

Do I need to point out that this is problematic, or should I just accept that this comes with the genre? I guess for now I will leave it be. But rest assured, Bookdragons, that I will share my thoughts on this later on.

And Josh actually goes through with his plan. While Aly is on shift at the hospital, he breaks into her home and films a video in her bedroom. The only thing that wasn’t part of Josh’s plan was Fred – Aly’s cat. But luckily for Josh Fred doesn’t attack him when he breaks in. Instead, he wants some pets.  

By the end of her shift Aly is thrilled to see that the Faceless Man has posted a new video. She also thinks it’s quite funny, that the room in which he filmed it looks like her bedroom. She even leaves a hyped comment about it before she drives home. Back home she thinks that Fred is behaving a little strange but doesn’t think too much of it. That is until she walks into her bedroom and finds the mask of The Faceless Man lying on her bed. And then it clicks. The room didn’t just look like her bedroom; it actually was her bedroom.

And at this point I am happy to report that Aly has common sense. She immediately goes for her gun and starts searching the house. After all fantasizing about someone breaking into your house and someone actually doing so are two completely different things. Aly is pissed. She starts DMing The Faceless Man demanding answers.

Josh meanwhile has his fun teasing her but is also a little concerned that he might have gone too far. Good. Also proof, that he too hasn’t lost all of his common sense. But then the book once again proves that Aly and I are different human beings. While she is pissed, that The Faceless Man actually broke into her home she is also immensely turned on… and gets off on that fantasy. All the while Josh is watching. Because not only did he break into her house, he also installed cameras to watch her. Bookdragons, please tell me you can feel my immense side eye right now.

The book says that he turns off his computer when he realizes what she is doing but he also started getting off himself. So, I don’t really feel like that should count as chivalrous.

But Aly’s sexual fantasies aside she still is not amused about the break-in. As she should be. Knowing that Taylor (her ex-hookup) is roommates with a professional hacker she calls him and asks if he thinks Josh could help her track someone down. Taylor agrees to set up a meet-up with Josh. He in turn is a bit freaked out that Aly will find out who he is, but at the same time intrigued to play her.

Meanwhile, Aly finds the cameras that Josh has installed. Needless to say, she is not at all amused by this. She instantly unplugs them and stops answering his text. Her anger doesn’t hold up for too long though. During work she starts checking her phone to see if he wrote her. Instead, she finds a new video. She leaves a comment which he immediately likes, which in turn starts a whole debate in the comment section, since he’s never done that before.

But of course, their interactions won’t stay restricted to online chats. Where would the fun be in that? After a particularly bad shift Aly finds The Faceless Man – sitting in her car. He’s not talking to her though (so that she can’t recognize his voice) and instead keeps on texting her. He insists on giving her a ride home since she had a long shift and shouldn’t be driving. And Aly… actually gets into the car. Granted, he gave her a gun and a knife so that she can be in control. But come on. We all know that good decision making doesn’t look like this. And if you don’t – please contact me and we can talk it through.

But Aly’s questionable decisions don’t stop there. For some reason she proceeds to give Josh a handjob and a blowjob – while he’s driving – all the while holding the knife. Now the obvious issues with doing this to your stalker aside – I do have some safety issues. First of all: Distracting the driver is generally a terrible idea, though I get why it appeals to people. But the knife. Not so sure about that one. And lo and behold when Josh comes Aly actually, accidentally stabs him. And this, Bookdragons, is why we shouldn’t fuck with actual knives.

At this point I would like to share some of my thoughts with you. Yes, I know that all of this is part of the genre and its appeal. But nonetheless I do think that there should be more discourse about it. Because I do think that books like this – in the wrong hands – can encourage the wrong behavior. Whilst in a fictional scenario it might be appealing, stalking in real life is never romantic or okay. Also, I don’t want actual stalkers to get the wrong ideas from this genre and thus encourage them to go through with assault, simply because it’s glorified here. Now, I don’t want to shame any of you for reading this. Obviously, we’re in the same boat here. I just think that we are missing out on important discourse and age restrictions right now. But I will talk more about this at the end of this review. I just had to get this off my chest for now.

But back to the story. Aly meets up with Josh to find The Faceless Man. He thinks he’s incredibly clever in wearing shoes in a different size, covering his tattoos and wearing gloves to fool Aly, but our girl is smarter than that. Of course, she realizes that he’s the man she’s looking for. But she also decides to play along and leave him under the impression that he fooled her.

Their flirting continues. One time The Faceless Man promises to wait for her when she comes home. When he doesn’t stay true to his promise Aly decides to be a bad girl (pun intended) and plugs back in the cameras before she proceeds to pleasure herself in front of them. Josh then proceeds to race to the house, causes a power outage and once again breaks into Aly’s house. And then the two of them have some quality adult time that involves a necklace (those who know, know). Or to say it in Josh’s words: “Mommy and Daddy need to have some alone time right now”.

But this book promised to be more than just stalker-smut. So, enter the big bad wolf: A rapist named Brad. He’s a patient in the hospital Aly works at, because one of his victims’ brothers tracked him down. The mostly female staff refuse to treat him, waiting for their male colleague to come around. And honestly? I love everything about that. Fuck men like him. I think it’s totally cool if they don’t get the medical attention they should. I don’t feel sorry for them one bit.

But Aly first and foremost is a very good nurse and actually does think he needs treatment. And also, she wants him out of the hospital. And since she knows martial arts, she volunteers to treat him. He gives her the absolute creeps and I’m right there with her. Just reading about the interaction made me feel bad and also wish him an untimely death. There, I said it.

Brad starts baiting her to get a reaction from her. Sadly, he succeeds and he spins it around, calling for help, saying she threatened him. Obviously, none of her co-workers believe him but Aly still has to go to HR. And as if the shift wasn’t bad enough already it ends with a car crash victim, sending Aly into a panic attack because it reminds her of the car crash, she had as a kid, when her mother died.

Josh watched all of this on the hospital’s security system, since – you know – he’s a stalker. So, when he sees that something is off with Aly, he decides to drive to her house and check in on her.  She tells him about her day and the car crash – apparently already fine with a stalker constantly breaking into her house.

And after all this emotional up and down we finally get to the scene that put this book into the spotlight: The famous knife-scene. For those of you who are not familiar: Josh slams an actual knife into Aly’s mattress and tells her to ride on it. Now, I had exactly two thoughts on that. First: Damn, you Josh, mattresses are expensive! (And yes, I’m glad to report that for once Aly and I shared thoughts). And Second: The German in me screamed “This is not TÜV-proved!”  Or in other words: “This feels really unsafe”.  The two of them don’t share my safety concerns though and Aly proceeds to ride the knife.

After that session the two of them are exhausted and Josh stays the night. That is until he wakes up to the alarms of Aly’s security system. He quickly puts two and two together. Since he is Aly’s stalker and he’s already in her house that means that someone is actually trying to break into her house.

It is Brad. The rapist from the hospital. Josh and Aly manage to overthrow him and get him unconscious. They discover that Brad came with a full-on killing-equipment, proving that he most likely wanted to rape and then kill her. And for once Aly, Josh and I share a moral compass. Because the two of them don’t want him to get away with this unharmed by turning him into the police, where he will be able to buy himself out again. So, they decide to bring Brad to his latest victim’s family so they can have their revenge on him. Sounds fair to me. Once again: I’m not a fan of rapists. They definitely are dirty scum. Sorry, not sorry.

Anyway. They pack Brad into a huge bag, put him into Josh’s car and drive to the family. When they arrive though, they discover that they accidentally unalived him, by taping his mouth and his nose and thus he suffocated in the trunk. Whoopsie. Josh freaks out though, since this corpse brings back some unwanted memories of his childhood. Aly who is confronted with death on a daily basis stays calm though and starts to plan their next steps.

Turns out Aly’s uncle works for the mafia. And honestly, since this is a Dark Romance book I wasn’t even surprised by this plot twist. They drive to him and ask him to help them make the corpse disappear. And he does.

Whilst Aly waits at Josh’s place for her uncle’s clean up crew to get rid of any form of evidence in her house she learns about Josh’s past. Or who his father is. At first, she freaks out, which is highly understandable. But I love that this book did not go down miscommunication-lane and the two of them actually talk it out the same day. We love that. So, now that all the cards are on the table and everyone knows who is who and who has what past, they officially become a couple and of course have sex. Duh.

But our story does not end here. To make sure that the police won’t suspect Aly or Josh’s involvement in Brad’s disappearance they break into his house to hack his laptop and erase his search history. Or more like Josh breaks in with Aly’s mobster family while she waits outside. During their break in they discover that Brad had more secrets to hide. In the form of some female corpses lying in his house.  But things go a bit sideways and they get company. Aly’s family clear off, but Josh stays to hack the laptop. Apparently, Brad’s parents had the same idea, if different motives.

But somehow Josh manages to get all the info he needs before fleeing the house, where Aly is still waiting for him. They run into the woods hiding from the police, who had arrived by now since the alarm went off. They manage to escape and Brad’s deeds get uncovered. Though obviously Brad himself does seem to “have fled the country”.

After all that adrenaline the two of them have a little BDSM session and confess their feelings for each other. They also go to a family dinner with Aly’s mafia family where threats from both sides are made. Mostly being don’t fuck us or Aly up and then we won’t fuck you up. You know, the typical.

And with that we are already at the epilogue of the book. And I have to say, I found it problematic. Aly has to flee through the woods and if Josh catches her in a specific time he’s allowed to have sex with her, though she is allowed to fight back and try to flee again. All of this felt like very questionable consent, and I didn’t feel like this could be talked into a sexy or romantic make-out sess. It just didn’t feel right for me. Sorry.  Also, the proposal at the end was fucking weird. They’ve just literally finished fucking in a fucking stream and then Josh pops the question. Idk. Bookdragons, if this did it for you, okay, but I had jumped ship at that point.

And that is our story. Which leads me to some final thoughts. As I stated before, I do think we need some deeper discussions when it comes to Dark Romance. I know that it is part of the genre to deal with darker themes. And I don’t think that’s the problem. I also love that this genre opens up space for kinky smut or something even more out of bounds than that. Especially since a lot of women read this genre and I just love that it shows them that their fantasies and forms of fun are neither weird nor uncommon. I really applaud this.

What I think is difficult about this genre is that at times it tends to romanticize things that we clearly need to point out are not okay in real life. Yes, I know that most of the readers who actively choose this genre are aware of that. But bear in mind that nowadays with social media this reaches a far bigger audience. And thus, people who are not in the bubble. People who might think “well, maybe this is what women want”. And this is where it gets dangerous. Because a) not all women want this and b) even the women who do like Dark Romance most likely wouldn’t want a real stalker or questionable consent.

Now this debate is very huge, and I don’t want to go too deep into it yet (just know that I plan on doing so in the future). But I want to point out some things in this book that I’m not quite on board with (the knife-scene and familiar scenes aside). I did not like that Aly and Josh proceeded under the “No safe words”-rule. Yes, trust is important. But that is exactly why safe words exist. Never forget that in these situations a “no” or “I’m uncomfortable” can be interpreted as “part of the game”. So, it is in fact far safer to have a safe word, like idk – Bananasplit – that is so out of context that your partner immediately knows to stop. Yes, I know a lot of you Bookdragons know this. But remember that since we don’t have an age restriction on these books yet a lot of young people who just start experiencing things, might read this and maybe start to think this is normal.

I also have problems with Josh being called a “green flag stalker”. Bookdragons, there is no such thing as a green flag stalker. Yes, I know, it is in discourse with the genre, Josh being good at heart and there being far worse people. That being said. Josh makes a lot of terrible choices and crosses lines. That is never a green flag. Even if Aly meets him halfway. Please remember that.

You know my feelings about the epilogue, so I won’t get into that.

So, what’s my final verdict? Yes, I had my problems with the book, but that is more so the genre than the book itself. The moral aspects aside, I did enjoy it. The smut was good (even if some of it is just something I wouldn’t personally do) and it had wit and banter. The characters were flawed and they knew that which is always a good starting point. So, if you can actually put all of that in perspective and know that this is just fiction and should stay this way, I actually do think it was an enjoyable book. It didn’t quite pick me up like other books, and tbh I’m not sure if you’ll ever find me giving a Dark Romance book a 5-star review. But I do feel comfortable giving it a 3.5 star review.

So, what are your thoughts? Did I get it wrong, is Josh more likable than I make him out to be? Do you think my TÜV-concerns are over the top? As always, I’m looking forward to meeting you in the comment section.