Book Review: Butcher & Blackbird by Brynne Weaver

The past few years, the romance genre has known a huge increase in popularity. One of the subgenres is dark romance, a genre I’m not particularly a fan of. However, I stay curious and therefore read these books. Butcher & Blackbird is the first book in the “Ruinous Love” trilogy by Brynne Weaver and has been on my TBR for months. I actually never picked it up, until now. It’s a book club pick, so that was a nice coincidence. I thought the approach is pretty unique, two serial killers competing with each other and finding love. I mean, sounds pretty cheesy, but I haven’t seen this concept before. Was it indeed as enjoyable as I’d expected?

About the book

This book may be unsuitable for people under 17 years of age due to its use of sexual content, drug and alcohol use, and/or violence.
Book Review: Butcher & Blackbird by Brynne WeaverButcher & Blackbird Series: Ruinous Love Triology #1
Published by Independently published on August 15, 2023
Pages: 362
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance

Every serial killer needs a friend.
Every game must have a winner.

When a chance encounter sparks an unlikely bond between rival murderers Sloane and Rowan, the two find something elusive—the friendship of a like-minded, pitch-black soul. From small town West Virginia to upscale California, from downtown Boston to rural Texas, the two hunters collide in an annual game of blood and suffering, one that pits them against the most dangerous monsters in the country.

But as their friendship develops into something more, the restless ghosts left in their wake are only a few steps behind, ready to claim more than just their newfound love.

Can Rowan and Sloane dig themselves out of a game of graves?
Or have they finally met their match?

Butcher & Blackbird is the first book in the Ruinous Love Dark Romance trilogy of interconnected stand-alones. This dual POV novel ends on a HEA.

***Butcher & Blackbird is a DARK ROMANCE intended for an adult audience – please see Brynne’s website for a comprehensive list of CWs***

My thoughts

This story is alternately told from both Rowan and Sloane’s POV. This way, we usually should be able to get to know these characters very well. Unfortunately, that’s not the case here. The characters are poorly written, after reading I still didn’t know anything about them. To me, it feels like these characters are lacking any kind of background story, especially Sloane. Rowan has some backstory, but this was uninteresting as well. Both characters have day jobs and travel a lot to kill. They kill a lot, but why? Their motives can only be guessed. Due to their poor execution, I was unable to feel any emotional connection to them, nor did I feel the chemistry. Therefore, I didn’t understand the romance at all. Their dialogues and interactions are cringy and juvenile, which is a huge letdown for me. In the end, I still don’t know who Rowan and Sloane are and that’s unfortunate for a romance where the characters are the building blocks of the book.

Unfortunately, the plot wasn’t any better. In fact, this book barely contains any plot at all. The murders which should bring more tension to this story were actually pretty boring. The author uses big time jumps, which were difficult to define whilst reading. I was confused a lot. Because the characters are written poorly, the plot automatically is as well. I really don’t get where the hype for this book is coming from, because the writing is bad as well. Reviews differ a lot, from 1 to 5 stars. However, it can be concluded from these reviews alone that the younger and less experienced readers love this book whereas the generally older and more experienced readers really dislike their reading experience. I stand with the latter group. Many people seem to like this book because it contains smut, which is just a shallow way of rating a book in my opinion. Yes, there indeed is smut, but it’s as cringy as the dialogue and interactions in this book. The only positive aspect is the audiobook narration. Narrators Joe Arden and Lucy Rivers really bring this book to live, even though it’s just poorly executed. They don’t ‘just narrate it’, but really interact with each other. Therefore, this reading experience is much more bearable. This audiobook is more like a graphic audiobook and that really fits the story.

Apparently I somehow expected this, but I hoped for a different outcome for Butcher & Blackbird by Brynne Weaver. The synopsis sounded intriguing enough, but the execution of this story was poor in every single aspect. The characters were shallow, their development non-existent. This is one of the building blocks in books within the romance genre, and if this is lacking, the plot automatically is as well. Add pretty poor writing to the mix and you get what I mean. I really didn’t enjoy this reading experience at all. The audiobook was the only positive aspect and made it bearable, as it was more like graphic audio instead of a usual audiobook narration. Despite this, it took me much longer than necessary to finish this book. It may be clear by now that I won’t be reading the rest of this series.


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