How do I describe this without giving anything away? There are characters that you love, and characters that you'll despise. This is a dark romance, so right up my alley with the banter and chaos that comes with it. And I truly do mean chaos. Please check out the trigger warnings!

Thank you to Netgalley, the author, and the publisher for the eARC.

I loved this story! The cast of characters is fantastic. Roman and Luna grabbed me and had me completely invested in their relationship. There is sexy romance, suspense, and the humor is sly. I enjoyed the entire book. The boots were hysterical. I can't wait for the next book.

First of all, the wit and banter is 👌🏻. Super satisfying and sharp. The kind of responses you wish you had thought of at the time, but only think of hours later.
I do think the MMC flipped from dislike to obsessed from one scene to the next, but I legitimately really liked this book and I can’t wait for the next in the series.
Sylvie is my soulmate and I won’t hear a word against it.

⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️Random notes from my read: CAN BE CONSIDERED SPOILERY⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️


* Klim and Roman’s texts to each other are killing me in the best way. Klim sounds so done with Roman’s crap. Like an exasperated parent
* *snort* Roman’s little breakdown of how their relationship is going to go is so….Roman.
* I’d marry Sylvia so fast. She’s my flavor of crazy
* Alexa vs Ivan. I’d buy tickets to that
* Hey now, you leave Jared alone. He’s the reason you’re alive right now
* Roman is not playing games. He’s 0 to 9000
* lol foot fungus


Many thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for providing me with an ARC and allowing me to provide my honest review

If you want to read a grisly dark romance this book is it. It has romance, dead bodies, BDSM and characters that you love and hate. I will definitely read more from J.L. Brannick.

✨I received this as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review✨
If I had to read “you and your questions” one more time. I felt like I was having war flashbacks from reading From Bood and Ash. It was too much. We get it. She’s inquisitive. Shut up about it and move on. No reason to mention it every single time she asks for clarification.
It’s little things like this that authors sometimes do that make the reader seem dumb or like they can’t follow along. It was really annoying.
I was absolutely obsessed with all the side characters in this story. Every single one of them was amazing. I think I liked the side characters more than the main characters, which isn’t great but I’m not mad about it. They were all so fun and weird and creepy, I kind of want them all as my own friends.
Roman’s character development wasn’t as pronounced as I wanted it to be. I really thought that with Luna telling him what she wanted and needed would give him room for growth, but he kind of ended up stagnating out. Luna had absolutely zero character development so I mean I guess I can be happy with the little bit he had.
I do think that Luna and Roman were a good couple to introduce readers to this series, they were just interesting enough to pull you in and get excited for the rest of the series. I think the author did a good job writing side characters but I also think in fleshing out those side characters she forgot to flesh out the main characters. To me, it felt more like telling and not showing when it came to the story. There was a lot of dialogue and not a lot of scene descriptions, which wasn’t entirely helpful as the story tended to jump locations rather frequently.
All in all, if you’re looking for an introductory dark romance, this would be good for you. It’s not as dark as some, but it goes have darker themes. I would like to know more about the camp that the boys went to, I really thought we would get a lot more information about that than we did. Hopefully the author goes into that in later books. I’m really looking forward to reading Xander, Killian, and Sylvie’s books, I do think they will be really good.

A hot, morally gray mentor who detests me. A sprawling funeral home. Torture, mayhem, and a Las Vegas wedding I don’t remember! Oooooh my!! I thought my kindle was going to catch fire! That’s how hot this book was lol plus it was a great read! It had suspense, intriguing, action, mobsters, gruesome murders by all, mystery, and some crazy twists and turns! The story was very interesting! I highly recommend reading this one! Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for sharing this book with me!

One of the things that makes a book good for me, is side characters that make me want more. The side characters in this were so good that I actually can't decide who I want the next book to be about, I'm just hoping we get them all.
I really enjoyed this, what's not to love about a mortician and her assistant torturing someone in the morgue whilst wearing bright sparkly wellies!
My only complaint was that I found the ending wrapped up a little quickly given that it was a large part of the reason Roman and Luna ended up together.
I liked that whilst the storyline for the main characters was wrapped up, we had enough breadcrumbs for what's to come in the series

Fast paced, with drama and intrigue. Intelligent dialogue and interesting characters. Loved the scene where Luna, the MFC, and her best friend are in colorful rubber boots while they take out the “trash.” The cousins, and especially Fennick, have mean family banter down pat. This is a spicy darkish romance with torture scenes laced with black humor. Las Vegas backdrop, entertaining read.

Barristers and Bones was a COMPLETELY new direction from Brannick and I am completely obsessed. While I do miss my Palm Springs family, but meeting the Spades was so much fun. Luna was a GREAT fmc, she was dark and creepy but also adorable. Without giving anything away, I thought the way that Brannick tied Luna and Roman together was really clever and gave them really interesting interactions.