Dark romance with some good laughs, spicy and stalking. Loved the banter between them! Amy was a great character, Josh was also a great complex character and past trauma worming through. Found him enjoyable and not creepy at all for a stalker book. Can we take a minute to appreciate Fred the cat?! I’m not even a cat person but I’d love to meet Fred and his friend at the end of the book! 4.5 stars and would recommend to my dark romance friends! Thank you to netgalley and publishers for an early ready and my honest review.

This one shocked me how good it was. I did not expect to love this one the way I did. WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT THIS BOOK MORE??!!! Omg its so good!

This is a page turning Dark Romance. The romance in this book is a mysterious slower burn, with an obsessive stalker side. The book is very spicy. The spicy scenes are descriptive, and fun taking in some of the fantasies of the thirst traps of social media. The book moves at a quick pace following Aly as she has her comments on a social media mask thirst trap account become reality. Josh has hidden away from the world due to who is father is, and Aly brings out a side of him he didnt know existed. Aly and Josh have some amazing banter throughout the entire book. The book is hot, and funny. It is a book you wont want to put down!

Spicy contemporary dark mf dual pov rom com. Fun read with fantastic banter. I'm so glad I was able to read this book via NetGalley. I'm adding the author's other works to my tbr now.

Thanks again to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this gem!

Where to begin? I can't decide if this book was dark romance or a funny rom-com with adorable banter. In the end -- it was clearly both (I swear).

Aly has a thing for masked men (if you're on MaskTok, then you know) and when her ex's roommate discovers that she's a fan of his masked account...all bets are off. Josh is this unhinged gooey cinnamon roll who is IMPOSSIBLE not to fall for.

I don't want to get too deep into the book and spoil their adventures but let's say they both get themselves into a bit of a pickle and that still doesn't stop these two from ultimately realizing each other is their missing half.

Special shoutout to Fred, the real star of the show!

OMG!! This book is just the best! I was sold at masked stalker.

This is a dual POV with golden retriever cinnamon roll masked MMC stalker, Fred who is a great judge of character, really good spice🥵, and witty banter.

The way Josh’s uses his stalker tendencies to take care of Aly is just so sweet. I loved everything about this. Their banter had me giggling. This is the perfect masked stalker rom-com. I will be thinking about this book for a long time.

What do you do when you find out your darkest fantasy has come to life?!?!

Where are my dark romcom lovers at? I see you raising your hands, and I’m here to say...this book is for you! It was such a wild ride and has the perfect balance of humor and dark vibes. I had no idea what I was getting into when I started this book except it had to do with a trauma nurse and a masked man, but it ended up being so much more than that. The banter, the heat, the humor, the characters, the story....I am totally blown away.

What to expect:
•Dark RomCom
•St@lker Romance
•Morally Gray MMC
•He Falls First & Hard
•Knife Play
•Banter

I love these characters. Aly and her masked man...they are seriously the best and are so perfect for each other. I was legit chuckling and swooning so much while reading…as well as fanning myself because whew does this book bring the HEAT. There were so many unexpected little elements and twists thrown in that elevated this book to an entirely new level.

There was captivating suspense, oh so delicious tension, top notch banter, and combustible chemistry. This was such an amazing read that I just want to shove at everyone to read.

Yeah, @navessa.allen, you had me at ghost masks and heavily tattooed. I, like Aly, am obsessed with the fiiiiiiiner thing in life 😉

What I liked about the book:
1. I loved that both of them had tragic backstories, rather than just one of them.

Josh got good with tech to hide him, his mom, and his stepdad from his killer father. He was also so concerned with not ending up like his dad, that he was such a freaking sweetie! Let’s forget about the cameras on her 24/7, the breaking into her house, and the overall obsessed/stalker status (this is dark romance, we can forgive most things 😉), this man did and was willing to do everything he could in his power to keep her safe and happy. He bought her better security systems, gave her rides home after exhausting shifts (complete with snacks!), and “adopted” her cat as though he was his own. He was, literally, the total package.

Aly became an ER trauma nurse because she couldn’t save her mom when she was a teenager. She was also incredibly smart and resilient after having closed herself off from others for years because of the fear of letting them down like she thought she let her mom down. She did not come off as naïve or unable to keep herself out of trouble. In fact, she came off as having a great “gut” and being calm under stress. This was so important because she was the “prey” in this situation, but it never felt like there was a power imbalance because of how strong and smart she was.

An additional thing I want to note about both of these characters is they each had an astounding grasp on their shortcomings and why they felt and did the things they did.

Josh: Why did it feel so good to care for her, even on such a micro level? Was it because I’d never had anyone to call my own before?

--

Aly: Why did I think I didn’t get to have good things? Was it because so much had been taken from me at too young an age…? Was that when I’d stopped letting people in and started pushing them away, only proving to myself that everyone would eventually leave me?

--

Despite some questionable choices at times, they were both good people who had bad luck and dirty minds.

2. Masked Man = good. Praise kink = good. Bondage = good. Edging = good. Breath play = good. So much good… 🤤

Also, kink normalization for the win!!!

“The fact that there were so many others into my specific kinks also normalized my desires. I didn’t feel wrong for liking mask play…”

3. Despite having a lot of heavy topics, trauma, and a super spicy subplot, this thing was chalked full of humor! I loved how funny Josh was, especially with Aly’s cat and the whole trail mix/car ride situation where he didn’t want her to hear his voice but he wanted to drive her home. Aly’s comments on his videos were hilarious as well! I can’t say I haven’t thought similar things and then giggled and talked myself out of typing them.

4. I liked that Tyler, Josh’s childhood best friend and roommate and Aly’s past hookup, showed up when it mattered. He stuck by Josh’s side since they were kids, he never brought girls home who were into true crime so they wouldn’t recognize Josh, and he explained Josh’s backstory to Aly when she was freaking out and ready to commit the miscommunication trope. Overall, he was a tool, but a useful one.

5. I loved Nico and Co 😂 I have a feeling their stories are going to be some of the trilogy. Please tell me Vern and Greg are next!!!

6. I ABSOLUTELY LOVED THAT THEY BROUGHT UP STDS BEFORE EVEN GIVING ORAL!!! Y’all, the OCD in my head tells me that if I get anything from you I will automatically die, so this very realistic situation to me was fantastic to see represented. I feel we get a lot of books that the question is asked after oral but before penetration, and I’m like, “Friend, his/her cum was on your tongue. If they ain’t clean, you ain’t either now.”

7. There were so many good lines, both dirty and thought provoking.

Josh: “If I’m the cat, what does that make you? The mouse?”
Aly: “I’m a mother f*cking wolf.”

- QUEEN!

I didn’t want him morally grey. I wanted someone with a soul as black as night. Someone who would burn the world down for me and not lose a single minute of sleep over it.

- Is this too much to ask?

“Relax, baby,” I told her, brushing her hair from her neck. “You can take it.”

- I. Am. Goo.

What I wasn’t a fan of:
1. I really wish his name wasn’t Josh. That is my brother’s name. And to make it worse, he is my brothers height, build, and general stature, so that’s fantastic. So, yeah, his name got filled in with Jace, Jason, Jacob, Jack, Joe, J, etc. really fast in my head. I ain’t never read a story about a man named Joe who I wanted to bang, but at least it was better than Josh.

Please note, this didn’t change my rating overall of the story, but did impact my experience 😂

2. The book read so fast, but it definitely hit a slow point towards the 60% mark or so. It did pick up again though.

Thank you to NetGalley, Zando, and Navessa Allen for the opportunity to read a copy of this book. The thoughts and opinions expressed above are honest and my own.

I ended up listening to the audio and reading along. This was deliciously dark and spicy! The narrators were perfection. The voice simulator for the male was everything. This is an audio I can see myself going back and listening too because I enjoyed so much. I need every paperback version and special edition that comes out of this book. It will be owned in all the self trophies possible.

This is a great book for any dark romance and mafia lovers! I very much enjoyed the dynamic between Aly & Josh; there were some very sweet moments, unhinged moments, smutty moments (of course), and laugh out loud moments. One of my favorite parts of this book was Aly’s cat, Fred, which was an unexpected but very much welcome surprise! Fred played a surprisingly important role in their relationship and who doesn’t absolutely love an animal companion?!

In all honesty this book could have been 5 stars for me but the random dive into mafia territory about halfway through was very jarring. I don’t mind the mafia influence, it was just so unexpected in a way that it felt like this book was two different stories in one. I also felt that there was A LOT of internal dialogue. I do enjoy reading our main characters though processes, however, there was a lot that I felt simply wasn’t needed.

All in all, I would still highly recommend this book to dark romance lovers and even to those who may be new to the genre looking for a good amount of thrill & spice!

Absolutely loved this!

I've been dipping my toe into dark romance and this was the perfect book for that. It's dark but also hilarious. Allen did a wonderful job blending dark romance and humor. It reminded me a lot of the book Butcher & Blackbird.

Aly & Josh were incredible characters. I thought their dynamic was a lot of fun. Josh was morally grey but not psycho which I appreciated. Aly was kind but also had a dark side. They were both fascinating characters that I wanted to learn more about. Both were the right kind of wrong for each other. They matched each other's freak if you will (lol).

The spice was fantastic and hot! Phew! Melted my kindle it was so hot!

100% recommend! Would say this is a good book for dark romance beginners like myself.

I really liked this book and had so much fun reading it. I was super invested in the first half but the second half dragged for some reason. This book gave butcher & blackbird vibes and I was here for it! Josh and Aly were so funny. Josh was such a sweetheart even though he was a little unhinged! I loved how they both were so protective of each other. They were perfect for each other. Overall I enjoyed this book but wish it took longer for Aly to find out who the stalker was. If you are looking for a dark masked man/ stalker romance this book is for you!
Thank you so much to Zando for letting me read this ARC 🫶🏻

This was wildly different from what I expected, in the best way. Read this for a stalker romance with a golden retriever MMC and black cat FMC!

Aly is a trauma nurse who’s getting burned out. She blows off steam watching masked man thirst traps— especially her favorite TikToker. She texts a screenshot of this anonymous TikTok star to an ex-hookup after a particularly hard, lonely few weeks, and his roommate sees the text.

The roommate, Josh, who’s the masked man in those videos. And who’s had a crush on Aly since they met months ago. Does the masked man persona really work for her? Would a little light stalking freak her out?

Throw in suspense, the mob, major touch-her-and-die, soo much spice, and all things consent— you have this fun read! Yes, I said it, fun! Because while Josh is 100% a stalker in every sense of the word, he does offer to stop if Aly wants him to.

And she doesn’t. After reading, I totally get why.

Also, the humor in this was so much fun! I have no clue how this author made the book work so well, but does it ever work! I’ll be reading anything else she writes, folks! <3 I highly recommend for a dark romance that’s not dark enough to send me running!

I am absolutely obsessed with this book!! It is one that I honestly think anyone over the age of 18 would enjoy. The banter and the way the relationship develops between the FMC and MMC is 2nd to none. This book will have you both laughing and swooning!

I picked up Lights Out by Navessa Allen on vibes alone, if I'm being honest. I thought the cover was gorgeous and hearing this was a dark, stalker romance, with folks comparing this to Butcher & Blackbird by Brynne Weaver had me very excited. Well, it is not like Butcher and Blackbird at all. This was, at its core, simply a dark erotic romance with little plot, and there's nothing wrong with that!

The little tag line of the couple who slays together, stays together, and the comparison to another serial killer romance, had me going into this thinking we were getting murder along with stalking. That was really not the case. This entire novel is held together only by kinky smut with the barest plot that honestly wasn't needed. It gets 3.5 stars because the spice and kink was well written and once I realized that's what this book was about, I simply accepted it and enjoyed the ride. Female main character Aly is a trauma nurse and loves going home to watch thirst traps on tiktok of masked men. Fairly normal. Male main character Josh is one of those masked men thirst traps. Small world, they both live in the same town and he tracks her down, installs some surveillance, and hacks into cameras. This is pretty much the extent of the stalking. I guess one of the things I hate about "stalker" romances is that they're over in a second. I think Josh stalks Aly for approximately 1-2 days and then they meet and are pretty much together 24/7. That isn't a stalker romance. I had this same problem with Haunting Adeline. Stalking should be about the build-up, almost like a slow-burn romance. But, whatever, that's a me issue, a technicality.

What really dragged this book down was simply the attempt at having plot and lack of tension. There wasn't any tension between the main characters, despite Aly saying she was scared because Josh's POV would come right afterward and we'd hear how he'd never do anything to harm her, how he messed up by not thinking things through, how he would be making up for it. I liked it, but it didn't give any tension because we knew Aly was okay with it too. There's no tension in Aly trying to figure out her masked man's identity and there's no tension when the ONE ACCIDENTAL MURDER takes place (again, despite making this sound like a serial killer romance.) Everything was always going to be okay and you could feel it as you read, which left me wondering what the point of the story was other than an excuse for stringing sex scenes together. If the stakes were higher for the murder, this would've gotten a higher rating. And if they got rid of the murder and just had it be sex scenes with Aly trying to figure out what is happening for the entire story, I would've given this a higher rating. Ultimately, it attempted to do two things at once and did not do either well.

If you like Haunting Adeline but thought that was 'too dark', you'll definitely love Lights Out by Navessa Allen. If you're used to reading something darker that can keep tension fraught and plot interesting, this might leave you unfulfilled. I think I'd recommend this to anyone that wants to read smut featuring their preferred kinks and don't care about much else. This feels better than Haunting Adeline, but not as good as AJ Merlin's Pleasure and Prey series.

So, this was one hundred percent tiktok fanfiction, and I'm completely okay with it. It was weird, it was exciting, it was fun, and while you have to suspend your disbelief a little bit for some of Aly's reactions to Josh in the beginning, you also kind of... get it? The characters were well thought out, so I felt that their behavior made sense. I saw it mentioned in a previous review and I agree that Aly says it best: Josh is a soft dom golden retriever—sweet in the streets and mean in the sheets. Reading his POV was probably my favorite part of the whole book, because the dynamic he had with himself—the part of him trying so hard to be the opposite of his father versus the part of him that was, well, really kinky—was really fun. I also agree with a lot of other reviewers, however, that the mob thing kind of came out of left field. I get why as far as plot and character development, but I also felt like the first half of the book and the second half were almost two completely separate books.
Overall this was a 3.5 for me that I rounded up because I still had a good time.

I was initially drawn to this one because it was touted as a dark rom-com similar to Butcher & Blackbird, featuring a trauma nurse who is obsessed with an online thirst trap account, only to have him become obsessed with her, but when I opened it up and saw how long it was, I balked. This one fell firmly into the category of "way longer than it needed to be", and had I not read the bulk of it over the course of a 5 hour road trip, it definitely would have put me in a slump. I would recommend reading when you have a solid block of time to devote to it, because while the book is long, the writing is quick and easily digestible.

Aly is an ER nurse who is laser focused on her work, to the detriment of her personal life and mental well being. Her one guilty pleasure is religiously watching The Faceless Man videos, toying with the ideas of her darker fantasies. When she reaches out to an old hookup with one of these videos as a suggestion, he balks, and shows the text to his roommate Josh, appalled. Not being the observant type, he doesn't realize that the couch in the video is Josh's, and the hulking 6'4" frame and tattoos match those of his best friend and roommate. Having met Aly one time when she was over their apartment, Josh initially panics that his real life and internet life will collide, but then breaks out all of his hacker skills to test if Aly truly meant all the things she said in his comments. The first half of the book is basically just smut and dark stalker fantasies, but when a deranged patient takes things too far with Aly, it pivots to a zany mafia caper. It felt a little like two different books, yet somehow, it worked. As a couple, I loved Aly and Josh, because when not in his Faceless Man persona, he was borderline silly, and sweet despite his traumatic childhood, whereas Aly was strong and hard, a worthy mouse to his cat. The spice was 🔥 but also showed the importance of being on the same wavelength as your partner, no matter your proclivities. I'm not sure if this was a standalone or if there are plans to continue as a series but I would love to see a Mafia romance spinoff with Aly's cousins.

This book had me in a chokehold till the mob stuff. Could have done without all that.
3.5 rounded up to 4

This book was surprisingly well written, not exhaustive or over the top with the characters.
I liked both POVs

I hated the entire portion of Brad, The Mob, The family stuff. It felt like two different books.

I loved this! The banter between Alt and Josh was so good! It had a similar vibe to butcher and blackbird that brings comedy into the darkness of the subject matter. I enjoyed getting to know Josh and seeing him get to know himself and separate his darkness from the darkness of his father that he fears may be inside him. He is such a sweet snuggly cat daddy and then the mask comes out and he’s the best knife daddy.

Lights Out was a total rollercoaster, but not in a good way. The plot was all over the place, jumping from hot and heavy to creepy stalker in the blink of an eye. I couldn't connect with either of the characters. The constant switch between steamy scenes and intense danger felt forced and unbalanced. It's clear the author was aiming for a dark romance, but it just came off as disturbing. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC, but this one wasn't for me.

5⭐️ 3🌶️
- MF
- Dark Romcom
- Morally Gray MCs
- Mask Kink
- Stalker
- Murder
- CNC
- Primal
- Bondage
- Knifeplay
- Biting

I haven’t enjoyed a dark romcom this much since Butcher and Blackbird. This book was hilarious! I know the month has only just started but I’m already predicting this is going to be my favorite book of the month and definitely one of my top reads of the year. I wasn’t even 50% in before I ordered a signed copy. I need this book on my shelf!

This book had it all! An over the top, possessive and obsessed MMC who would do anything for the FMC. A baddie FMC who wasn’t afraid to but jerks in their place and yet be vulnerable with the MMC.

Seriously Aly and Josh were a match made in unhinged heaven. I loved how he was so over the top and she was like I know I’m making dumb decisions but let me just get my raging hormones under control and maybe I’ll start making smarter choices. Spoiler. She doesn’t. But it all works out because he literally worships her and there isn’t a single thing he wouldn’t do for her.

Josh was sarcastic and so funny! I seriously couldn’t stop laughing. I love how he just decided that Aly’s cat was now their child and started calling them Fred’s mommy and daddy. Don’t get me started on him using the tracker to write out LOL.

This book absolutely lived up to the hype and I can’t wait to see what’s next from
Navessa.