The Last Wolf, by Maria Vale

I’m trying to do SuperWendy’s TBR Challenge this year, and the theme this month is ‘fairy tales’. What could be easier, right? Genre romance is chock-full of Beauty and the Beast retellings ¹ , to say nothing of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and all the rest.

Of course, as I scrolled through my digital TBR shelves and scanned the print TBR cordillera of Doom, not one title jumped out and yelled, “me, me! I’m an obvious fairy tale retelling”. ²

Which is why I have decided that wolf shifters in the woods totally works. (Because Red Riding Hood. Work with me here, people.)

Reader beware: abusive parent, graphic violence, graphic language, sex on page, maternal death, stillbirth. Narrated in first person present tense.

Also, I go on a bit of a rant.

The Matrimonial Advertisement, by Mimi Matthews

My second book by Ms Matthews, and the first in a four book series, the Parish Orphans of Devon; this is another Victorian era-set romance with some kisses, lovely sexual tension, and great writing.

However, reader beware: there are some description of the abuse-cum-torture, inflicted on people in private ‘mental asylums’, during the Victorian era in Britain; and some description of the torture of a white man by Indian sepuys during the Indian rebellion of 1857.

Gone Too Far, by Suzanne Brockmann

For years I’ve been convinced that at some point I wrote a review of Gone Too Far. I even remember a paragraph from said review! And yet, I can’t find it anywhere. After wracking my brains, I finally realized that I did, in fact, write a review shortly after the book came out in 2003. Only, I wrote it as a post to Ms Brockmann’s reader board, which was hosed at least a decade ago.

What’s a reader to do, but indulge in a re-read, and write a new version of that review? Maybe that way it will stop haunting me!

Reader, beware: on the page there’s explicit sex, explicit language, violence, racism, alcoholism, some Islamophobia, and references to off-the-page child abuse.

Edge of Nowhere, by Felicia Davin

This is one of the many books that have languished in the digital TBR for far too long. Back in November, I saw on twitter that all three titles in the series were on sale, so I snapped the next two, and then finally read this one. And now, dear readers, you get to see what I thought about it.

Reader, beware: please note that there is graphic sex on the page between two consenting adult men, as well as references to past abuse in one of the characters’ childhood. There’s also some unethical experimentation that includes starvation, and a scene of accidental chemically induced high that almost leads to sex. (The author has a content guidance note here, below the book blurb.)

For romance readers: this story ends with a very hopeful HFN.