Last year, I saw Haunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton literally everywhere. It was all over my social media and bookish friends of mine had read the book and liked it. Even though it’s dark and somewhat disturbing. Naturally, this sparked my curiosity and I bought myself a copy. However, it wasn’t until recently that I picked it up. I wanted to read something different and I was wondering whether I would enjoy a dark romance or if it’s not for me. Before moving on to my review, please consider all the trigger warnings before deciding whether this book is something for you or not. Also, I strongly recommend this content for people over 18.

About the book

The Manipulator

I can manipulate the emotions of anyone who lets me.
I will make you hurt, make you cry, make you laugh and sigh.
But my words don’t affect him. Especially not when I plead for him to leave.
He’s always there, watching and waiting.
And I can never look away.
Not when I want him to come closer.

The Shadow

I didn’t mean to fall in love.
But now that I have, I can’t stay away.
I’m mesmerized by her smile, by her eyes, and the way she moves.
The way she undresses…
I’ll keep watching and waiting. Until I can make her mine.
And once she is, I’ll never let her go.
Not even when she begs me to.

While not required, it is highly suggested to read the novella, Satan’s Affair, first.

Warning: This book ends on a cliffhanger.

My review

Expectations

Even though many people were positively surprised by this book, I still kept my expectations low. Because there were also many negative reviews and I didn’t want to get my hopes up. It was my first dark romance novel and therefore it felt not OK to have high expectations or something like that. I love romances with a background story and I was hoping that this book would provide me with one as well. Well, I will come back to that later. I expected lots, lots and lots of smut as well as weird and creepy situations. These expectations came through, because this is the most absurd book I have ever read in my entire life. 

Characters

I really don’t know what to say about the characters. We follow two main characters, Adeline and Zade. Adeline is the manipulator, Zade the shadow. However, he remains the anonymous stalker for most of the book. He is quite hypocrite though, because he saves children and women from unsafe situations and child trafficking, meanwhile stalking Adeline for I don’t know what reason. This is not revealed in the book yet. We barely get to know both characters. Yes, we know Adeline is an author of dark romance novels and inherited her grandma’s house – which is quite haunted by the way. When renovating the house, she stumbles upon her great grandmother’s diary which contains several interesting revelations. Furthermore, we get to know that she doesn’t mind good sex. Unfortunately, both characters lack much depth here. They are very unlikeable, but that’s probably the purpose of a book within this subgenre.

Writing

The writing is not good per se. It never draws you into the story and it never gets sexy like the blurb says it would be. It falls flat most of the time and again, lacks depth. The POV switching between Adeline and Zade is probably the best thing because this is the only way we get to know them a bit better.

Plot

Is dark romance supposed to have a plot? I don’t even know. Here, there definitely is a plot line, but this is a disturbing one. Adeline has a very, very creepy stalker as you might already know by now. This is the main point of the book, alongside the mystery of her great grandma’s diary. I was more interested in the mystery part than in the stalking part, because it felt so repetitive. The mystery part feels like we’re working on something, to solve something that has influenced Adeline’s family for decades. However, I didn’t feel any chemistry between the characters and I prefer that in my romance novels. I also missed some background story, because the background information we got didn’t interest me really.

Final thoughts

Haunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton was an interesting reading experience to say the least. It was my first dark romance read and it was quite okay. It’s creepy and trigger heavy. The smut is heavier than I’ve ever read before. However, this book hasn’t convinced me to read the sequel, Hunting Adeline. Furthermore, i don’t think dark romance is a subgenre that is for me, so I probably won’t pick it up for a while. However, Butcher & Blackbird by Brynne Weaver is still on my Kindle…