Black Sheep

Black Sheep follows the story of an unassuming serial killer/doctoral student (Bria Brooks) and a college professor (Dr. Elijah Kaplan) who both have their sights set on finding the head of the Legio Agni cult. The hunt for Caron Berger is what brings these two together and it is a steamy wild ride to say the least 🎢I really loved the cult aspect of this book and how we learn so much about Bria’s backstory as well as her relationship with Samuel. There was a lot depth and progression to this story and it was so much more than just a spicy read (although the spice was 🔥10/10🔥). The plot had vengeance, character growth, witty banter, navigating love, and an ending that brought such a smile to my face.Dr. Kaplan having a secret dark/kinky side 😈 was the perfect touch to his character and made his dynamic with Bria absolute perfection. Their chemistry was complete fire and the things that Kaplan said had me S H O O K 😮‍💨🥵 I adored the mixture of passion/BDSM/romance that they had with one another.What You’ll Find- Dual POV- 🥣 Unaliver FMC- K-nky Professor MMC 😏- Life after escaping a cult- BDSM, Breath Play + Lots of Toys 🥵

Physical Condition: The book arrived in good condition. It looked to be brand new which is what I ordered. While there weren't any misprints in the actual story, I did have an issue with the way the book itself was printed. The dimensions of the book seemed larger than it needed to be. There was a good inch thick margin on each side of the text that just felt unnecessary. Either make the text large enough to fill the pages, or make the dimensions of the book to match the way the text was laid out. This is more of a personal problem, but it's the only issue I had with the physical condition.Book Review: This is now the second book by Weaver that I’ve read and I enjoyed it just as much as the first book. Although I can say when I picked this one up, I was thinking it was like her recent book, <i> Butcher & Blackbird,</i> synopsis wise until I realized that Eli is not an serial unaliver (amazon flags certain words so I've had to change them or hint at things instead) also, it’s just Bria and then I saw all the other ways it was different as I was reading. I don’t think I’ve read a book by two authors before, but this one was a pretty good start. Since I’ve only read one of Weaver’s books, I didn’t know her style well enough to be able to tell where the two voices maybe sounded different, but I don’t know if that’s necessarily a bad thing. There were a few times in the writing where I was confused on what they’d be trying to describe or it seemed like minute details were left out that would’ve made more sense. It didn’t happen frequently, but enough times for me to notice it. I’ve only recently started getting into dark romance books, but when I do read them, I usually go into them with not necessarily low expectations, but a lesser expectation of reality. What I mean by that is, did I read this and want the professor to absolutely end up with Bria the serial unaliver? Heck yes. Now if this was a true story would I want the same to happen? Absolutely not. I’d be yelling for that man to be running for the hillsssssss. But considering this was all fictional, I loved it when they were together. The relationship could have been a little stronger though in the sense that we don’t get too many of their interactions outside of sexual ones to know if they really have a true connection outside of the physical. Sure there’s the witty banter and mystery, but besides that I’m not sure it made enough sense for them to fall in love so fast and for Eli to look over so many things just because the s*x was great. It may have made the book a little longer, but it probably would’ve benefitted for us to see more of those in-between interactions to see the types of conversations they could have on just a normal day with no s*x. When it comes to Bria, her backstory is rather dark and sad and I can completely understand why she went after the people she did. She really didn’t stand a chance at a normal life right from the jump and while Samuel did take her in, it still continued down a dark path. I would have liked to get a little more of a backstory on Samuel too to find out the types of people he went after, how he got started in the first place, and even what brought him to the dumping ground at the time Bria ended up there. I understand what was implied, but I still wanted a little more detail. It did warm my heart near the end when Bria heard the words of the last journal page. That was really sweet and showed the bond went deeper than maybe either of them wanted to admit. When it came to Eli, I don’t necessarily see how he was all that dark aside from the kinks he had, but I still feel the two of them were a good fit for each other. He was head over heels for her from the moment he saw her and I just couldn’t but love every minute of it. When things do start to go to crap between them, the authors at least give him a realistic reaction to it all. If he didn’t react that way it would’ve just made it entirely too unrealistic and kinda ruined that last half of the book. There were definitely wayyyyy more spicy scenes in this book than I was prepared for, but I ain’t mad at it. The library scene alone has been living rent free in my head ever since I read it. Overall I enjoyed reading this story. I can’t say I was hooked on it right from the first chapter, but it also didn’t take me long to get into it. This was honestly a rather quick read for me and I look forward to reading more from these authors. If a few parts had been stronger, this would’ve been a five stars, but I still give it a four due to how much I enjoyed it.Book rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / Spice rating: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ (both for how frequent and the detail)

This might be my very favorite Brynne Weaver book and my intro into Alexa Harlowe’s work. I am blown away, it had humor and spice interwoven throughout but I found this story to be unexpectedly moving and emotional with Samual. The authors did the serial killer trope so good, I don’t know how I’ll recover. Truly amazing work! I had so much fun reading it, was up until 3am needing to finish this story. Excuse me while I go down the rabbit whole to read both author’s full catalogs.

***SPOILERS AHEAD***At first I was pretty hyped with this book and gave it 5 stars .. after thinking about it I give it 3.75/5 LOL. It was still pretty good though.Anything with a serial killer heroine is immediately gaining brownie points with me. (Although nothing seems to compare to the queen herself Lana Myers😩).Bria’s background as to why she is a serial killer was literally such a good story line. But her character development was like eeeehhhhhh.As for the main characters together, Bria and Eli had very good se*ual chemistry. The tension and angst and their witty banter with each other was HOT!As for romantic chemistry? eeeh Idkkk. I feel like their relationship was mainly based on se*ual attraction and se* (which I am not complaining LOL I love me some smut).As for her character development I was talking about, her entire mission as a killer seems to be put on hold and morphed into a different plan just for Eli. Like ok sure his long lost brother who he thought was dead ends up being the master guy of the cult BUT SO??! Stick to your shit and kill the guy! The romantic suspense and tension and anticipation was missing since from the second they meet they are obsessed with each other.Now don’t get me wrong, I liked the book. I just feel like it could have been so much more!!! The bones of the story were GOOD! But then it didn’t unravel the way it could have.But still a great read and I am happy I came across this book. (:

Honestly I’m not sure what to rate this. Did I like it? Yes. Did I love it? No. Still it was interesting. Loved the spice. Loved the main characters. Didn’t really understand the reason was Gabriel/caron did what he did? I mean to me with his background and his childhood it didn’t make sense? Maybe I’m overthinking it. I was also very sad with Samuel’s ending. Did I see it coming? Yes. Still it was sad. Still good story

Loved it!! Chilling and kept me on the edge of my seat!! This book is definitely becoming one of my favorites