Welcome to Carnage, Selena Winters

GoodReads Rating: 3.68 ⭐️

My Rating: ⭐️

Spice: 🔥🔥🔥🔥

On Kindle Unlimited?: Yes

Kindle E-book: $2.99

Paperback: $9.99

Length: 142 pages

‼️NOTE: THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS‼️

Two years ago, at her town’s Halloween carnival, Avina had a ✨totally consensual encounter✨ with a masked man. During the encounter, he told her that she belonged to him, and he would kill anyone who tried to take her from him.

Two years and two first dates later, the masked man’s statement’s are truer than she’d like. Both of the boys she’s dated died after the first date: murdered in cold blood.

Now, Avina’s best friend is suggesting they all go to Carnage’s Halloween Carnival. Surely, a night of fun will quell her worries.

Meanwhile, Nyx, her brother’s best friend, lurks in the shadows, watching and being watched. The “darkness” he exudes attracts Avina, no matter how hard she resists. And Nyx, for his part, can’t wait to finish the “game” they started two years ago.

Now, as I’ve said in some other posts: I would not call myself a dark romance reader. So, I might be missing something that seasoned dark romance readers wouldn’t, because, if a friend gave me this book to try and get me into dark romance, I would never touch the genre again.

First, let’s talk about Nyx, the “romantic” lead for our FMC. Nyx would be the type of guy that everyone knew in grade school: that guy who tries to be edgy because it’s what people think is cool. But then, as you get older, you realize that same guy, who never grew out of his “dark” phase, is a loser. And yes, Winters tries to give us reasons behind Nyx’s propensity for murder, but, well, I couldn’t bring myself to care.

Not only do we only find these things out at the end of the book, by the time we find out that he had an abusive father who murdered his sister when she was three years old, and that he burned the house down to kill his father, killing his mother by accident, Nyx has already killed three people because he thinks he and Avina belong together. That Avina *belongs* to him.

He claims to love Avina, and that the “darkness”in him is compatible with the “darkness” in her, but c’mon. We’re all old enough to see through this shit: it’s pathetic. The book would’ve been better if Nyx had been arrested.

Which brings me to Avina. Now again, as I don’t often read the genre, I’m not sure how *other* dark romance heroines behave, but god dammit if Avina isn’t dumb as a rock. She is, surprisingly, somewhat quick to put together that Nyx murdered her dates…and then does nothing with that information. She could have gone to the police, the police actually interview her because of the murders. They suggest she go into witness protection, or that she be used as bait in a sting operation to catch the killer.

But Avina does neither of those things. Instead saying she has no idea who the murderer is, and then spending the rest of the book trying to manage Nyx’s “darkness” so he doesn’t end up murdering her brother or her best friend.

And why does she do this? She does this because allegedly there is a “twisted darkness” inside of her, a “twisted darkness” that only Nyx will understand. Although we don’t even understand what that “twisted darkness” is. We are never privy to any of Avina‘s dark thoughts, and other than not going to the police, it seems the only darkness she contains is the space between her ears where her brain should be.

Oh, yeah, and I think she’s conflating darkness with horniness. For reasons known only to Avina, Nyx is so attractive. I’m not sure if it’s actual attraction since, based on the way he’s written, I can only see him as a tool, or if it’s attraction due to propinquity since he is her brother’s best friend.

What Avina really needs is for someone to tell her that feeling horny is not bad, no feeling is bad, it’s the actions you do and do not take in response to those feelings that makes you good or bad. Then after that, Avina needs is to go to therapy to get over her parents’ death, and then call the police and get Nyx arrested.

If you haven’t read dark romance, but want to give the genre a try, pick another book. If you are a dark romance reader, don’t waste your time.

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