I absolutely loved this book. I stumbled upon it as one of my recommended and I just disregarded my current tbr list, because it just sounded so good. It's a little dark, but not too much. It had some hilarious moments that I had to just put my kindle down and laugh about it real quick. Their banter with each other was great. Josh is definitely a golden retriever type stalker, which is something I loved.

"The couple who slays together, stays together."

This book gave me everything i love.
- Masked Men? Check
- Stalking? Check
- Knife Play? Check
- Bondage? Check
- Edging? Check
- Primal Play? Check
- Cute, funny banter? Check
- The most devoted, sweet, loving man who doesn't play around about his girl and will absolutely fuck you up if need be? Check
- Murder? Check

This book was so funny. I found myself laughing out loud so many times. The spice, the banter, the chemistry between the two main characters was perfect.

Loved this book !! Do you like a hot mask man who is going to stalk you ? This book is for you ! A dark romance rom com, that has the best amount of spice and comedy. Highly recommend!

I really had fun reading this one! Definitely along the lines of Butcher & Blackbird, this dark romance is spicy and dangerous. It was a bit longer than I was anticipating but it didn’t completely lose my attention kind of long. It was fun throughout the whole story! I really enjoyed the characters as well! I am so grateful to Zando for sending me this one early and I can’t wait for everyone to try it out!

OMG this book was so great! I couldn’t stop reading it.
I love that there are so many fun moments and pretty disturbing moments and so many unexpected twists in the story.
Aly is such a badass character. She was obsessed with masked man and finally her dark fantasies become reality. And Josh has finally found a woman he can really care.
If you like dark romance, stalking and some mafia then you’ll definitely enjoy this book!

I dnfed this book at 15%. I was really bored honestly. There were a lot of unnecessary details being given and it dragged. If it wasn't unnecessary filler info, it was thinking about sex. I love spicy books but this wasn't for me. I like dark romance, but this wasn't for me.

lights out is the perfect "decaf" dark romance! It has the perfect combination of morally gray main characters, mafia, knifes, and a cat. The book never felt stale and kept me on the edge of my seat from start to finish.

If a light-heated stalker romance could exist, it would be this book. I would have liked to see the main character put up a little more of a fight knowing that someone just broke into her home, but you can't help but fall in love with Josh. They match each other well and the way he takes care of Aly and is there for her after all the horribleness that surrounds her on a daily basis, it was was difficult not rooted for him.

I truly enjoyed this book! I've been wanting to read it for awhile and when I saw ARCs available for the republishing, I jumped on it. This book is a perfect stepping stone for those who aren't sure dark romance/stalker romance is there thing.

Josh is such a cinnamon roll for a guy who posts masked thirst traps and has the urge to stalk a woman. I think his backstory with his father added a little something extra to his character. I'm not going to lie, I'd love to know more about that time in his life. That being said, the author did a really good job of making sure this story was about Josh and not his father.

I loved Aly! I feel like a lot of us ladies can relate to her when it comes to watching certain types of tiktoks and reels. She's such a badass though and isn't scared to handle a gun or protect herself. I felt like the way she handled everything with her stalker at first was really good. I liked that she didn't just sit around and cry about it. Nope, she tried to stalk him back and solve the mystery, WHILE being smart about it. She had mixed emotions about the entire thing which felt pretty realistic to me.

The only part I was a little meh about was the mob aspect near the end. I would've rather seen Josh and Aly handle their little issue on their own. It just felt a little out of place to randomly drop the fact that some of her family had mob ties, especially after learning about Josh's father.

All in all. I really enjoyed the story. There's no third act breakup, and I found the writing and plot very interesting, and the spice was 5 alarm! Seriously, if you're a lover of spice be sure to add this book to your TBR.

I received an e-copy of this book for review through NetGalley (thank you!) but, unfortunately, this one is just not for me. I made it to about the 14% mark before realizing I could not make myself get through the rest of this gigantic book. The premise was promising but there just wasn't enough plot or interest in the characters for me to continue. I think this particular story would have been better suited to a novella-length rather than almost 500 pages.

Completely delectable dark romcom.
Aly is a trauma nurse in the ER, in her free time she enjoys watching masked men thirst traps on the web. Unbeknownst to her, the faceless masked man is Josh, the roommate of her ex-hookup. Josh is secrecy obsessed with Aly after finding all of her comments on his videos and decides to act on his feelings, but not tell Aly who he is. A bit of cat and mouse stalker, but Josh really cares about her and wants to keep her safe from the actual bad things.

I loved this book so much, so much! I can't wait to read it again. It was funny and sexy, a darker romance that feels like a romcom.

I was lucky enough to receive a free copy to read and review honestly.

My first from Navessa Allen, and it was an enjoyable read for sure! Aly and Josh were very likable characters and their inner dialogues were so funny! The banter is so good here. I would say I loved the first half of the book so much, but the last half dragged/didn't pan out well for me and here's why:

There was too much and too little at the same time. Multiple times throughout the book, details would be written in excess. So much so that I was anticipating something to happen, or I thought I would need to remember the detail later on but that was not the case (i.e., when Josh gets the cat to bring back to the bedroom, floor plans). Other times, when I wanted details to be embellished, it was glossed over.

Also, Aly's background was a fun addition but almost felt too sudden lol. I wish that was explored a little it more because I felt Josh's character rounded out very well.

It's a thick book but it actually reads fairly quickly, barring the additional details/conversations.

Overall, great romcom with dark themes. Don't go in expecting a super dark romance. Expect morally gray characters, spicyyyy scenes, and a whole lotta fun!

Absolutely hooked on this book!!! I couldn't put it down once I started! And my kids were begging for my attention. (I may have got the bad mom stamp that day) I related this book to one of my other favorite books, and I think this one might actually top it! So that has to say something!!! If I could give this book more then 5 stars I would totally give it more! I devoured this book!!! And I can't wait till I can hold this book in my hands and put it on my shelf along with all my other books I love!

First of all I would like to thank Zando for providing me with an E-ARC of this to read and review.

Navessa is a new to me author so I really was going in blind- from what I have seen she does post a lot on her Patreon.

Lights Out is marketed as dark romcom, has scenes depicting stalking, weapon play/insertion, a lot of spice, mask kink, primal play, traumatic childhood events, organised crime and more.

I will be honest, there were parts that could have been left out- details of an apartment floorplan comes to mind, the detail given during that moment had me convinced that something was going to happen in said apartment in a later chapter.- nothing happened.

The pacing was hit and miss, occasionally I felt like chapters were dragging but then others had you hooked in- audiobook format could probably help if you feel like it is dragging.

I wouldn't say the characters of Aly and Josh were likeable nor were they unlikeable- I will admit I enjoyed everytime Josh referred to Fred as "their son" was it a little cringey? Yes possibly but in my opinion it was cute.

One thing I will say is that this is quite modern and some of the phrases used throughout could be considered as "millennial" or "Gen-X" coded; such as "thirst trap" and "shooketh" off the top of my head, personally I don't mind it too much, modern-ish language is to be expected when social media plays a big part in the plot.

The spice was... ooh the spice was there, honestly I think I would read A little novella of Aly and Josh after filming one of his thirst trap videos.

All in all I'm not disappointed in this, I liked it but I didn't LOVE it, I would definitely be interested if I saw it on kindle or audible.

Would I recommend it? Quite possibly, at the end of the day when we are reading spice we aren't looking for a literary masterpiece, we just want a one handed read, and this does deliver that, along with humour (mostly dad jokes) and a bit of childhood trauma.

I would definitely check out the trigger warnings before proceeding because there is nothing worse than someone who ignores the trigger warnings and then complains about the content. Trigger warnings are there for a reason.

I liked the premise of this book because it’s as real life as one can get.
Hot guy on the internet with a mask and the FMC is obsessed.
But switch it up where the MMC is also obsessed the FMC just doesn’t know.

And so ensues the rest of the story.

I did feel at times that it was a little lackluster and 90% spice but also I got to live my masked man fantasy in these pages. So I can’t be that mad.

This book took me in so many different directions than expected and I was there for every twist and turn.

Also Fred must be protected at all costs.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🌶️🌶️

when i first saw a video about this book around halloween, i knew i needed to read it. it was right up my alley and when i got the arc, i was not disappointed.

this is described as a dark rom-com and man oh man is it 😂 there were so many times i was laughing so hard i almost pissed my pants!!!! my husband kept giving me some weird looks when i would just randomly start cackling at something aly said. seriously, this was so funny i think my sides are permanently bruised from laughing so much.

josh. joshua. josharoni. where do i sign up for one of you? is there an order form i have to fill out? a waitlist? because wow. this man is Hot™️ and i would gladly crawl to him. i also get why he's vegan. that would scar the shit out of me too, man.

aly is so fucking funny, i want to be her best friend. seriously her humor is exactly like mine and i need her in my life. let's go get coffee girl, we'll make a day of it! i love that she's tall and muscular and not described as like, a petite woman. i'm tired of reading those. and the fact that she looked at those thirst traps and left those comments? yeah. we're soul mates.

this book was seriously a lighter version of butcher and blackbird and i L O V E D it. every single second. i'm buying this book for every single person i know for christmas and i'm forcing them to read it so they can laugh with me.

I'm so upset I didn't like this one.. I genuinely tried to give it a fair shot. My hopes were super high. But I found it really cringy

Starting this review off with the full disclosure that I was unable to finish this book.

When I first received this book, I was incredibly excited to be considered for this opportunity, That being said, I was a little wary of the books contents. While I have dabbled in dark romance before, I wasn't sold on this "masked tiktoker" trope which felt more like a young adults fever dream than a well thought out plot. Unfortunately, I was correct.

This book felt as if the author cherry picked her favorite tropes from the dark romance side of tiktok and strung them together with mediocre writing capabilities and "relatable" content. The plot is a mess and the functionality of this author's writing style is lack luster, with too many boring and unnecessary details and plot points. It is also clear that the author truly has no experience in kink and is only contributing to the misrepresentation of the community in fiction.

This book was mediocre at best and as stated before, I was unable to finish. Not sure if I would consider reading from this author again in the future.

A huge thank you to Zando Projects and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy!

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and author for my e-arc of this title.
Unfortunately, it’s a DNF for me. I want to be fair to this book and recognize at the 12% point that this story will not work for me. Firstly, this book does not have to be almost 500 pages. 250 MAX. Secondly, I found the two main characters to be so similar is voice that it didn’t make the dual POV interesting. Not to mention, Aly was so cringey.
This will definitely land with some people, but just not me.