Thank you for visiting this booklist. I have tried to include a variety of dark romance books. It is one of my favorite genres and I am happy that it is now gaining traction and readers are enjoying them also. Books with dark romance contain a lot of “forbidden” scenarios and therefore it is imperative that you check out the triggers before reading if you are sensitive to certain topics.
Usually triggers warnings can be found inside of the book or on the author’s website. Occasionally they are found in the book blurb/synopsis on Amazon but not normally.
This is just Part 1 and there will be many more lists of dark romance books that I have enjoyed and want you to enjoy also. Good reading!
****Please check for trigger warnings before reading these books.
32 Best Dark Romance Books
1. Haunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton
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.
Book Review: Haunting Adeline by H. D. Carlton
2. Sick Fux by Tillie Cole
When Ellis Earnshaw and Heathan James met as children, they couldn’t have been more different. Ellis was loud and beautiful – all blond hair, bright laughs and smiles. Heathan was dark and brooding, and obsessed with watching things die.The pair forged an unlikely friendship, unique and strange. Until they were ripped apart by the sick cruelty of others, separated for years, both locked in a perpetual hell.Eleven years later, Heathan is back for his girl. Back from a place from which he thought there was no return. Back to seek revenge on those who wronged them.Time has made Heathan’s soul darker, polluted with hatred and the thirst for blood.Time has made Ellis a shell of her former self, a little girl lost in the vastness of her pain.As Heathan pulls Ellis out of her mental prison, reviving the essence of who she once was, down the rabbit hole they will go.With malice in their hearts and vengeance in their veins, they will seek out the ones who hurt and destroyed them.One at a time.Each one more deadly than the last.Tick Tock.D
3. The Ritual by Shantel Tessier
Barrington University is home of the Lords, a secret society that requires their blood in payment. They are above all—the most powerful men in the world. They devote their lives to violence in exchange for power. And during their senior year, they are offered a chosen one.
I VOW. YOU VOW. WE VOW.
People think growing up with money is freeing, but I promise you, it’s not. My entire life has been planned out for me. I never got the chance to do what I wanted until Ryat Alexander Archer came along and gave me an option for a better life. He offered me what no one else ever had—freedom.
I chose to be his. He made me believe that anyway, but it was just another lie. A way that the Lords manipulate you into doing what they want.
After being sucked into the dark, twisted world of the Lords, I embraced my new role and allowed Ryat to parade me around like the trophy I was to him. But like all things, what started out as a game soon became a fight for survival. And the only way out was death.
4. Deliver by Pam Godwin
His name was Joshua Carter. Now it’s whatever she wants it to be.
She is a Deliverer.
She lures young men and delivers them to be sold. She delivers the strikes that enforce their obedience. She delivers the training that determines their purchase price.
As long as she delivers, the arrangement that protects her family will hold.
Delivering is all she knows.
The one thing she can’t deliver is a captive from slavery.
Until him.
And her stubborn slave thinks he can deliver her…from herself.
5. Thy Kingdom Come by Monica James
Monsters are real.
When I was five years old, I watched my mother take her last breath—a breath three monsters stole from her.
I never chose this life. My father says it’s my birthright, but all I see is a curse. It’s because of the Kelly name my mum was slain by the Doyles—our enemies in Dublin, the fellas livin’ on borrowed time.
All of Belfast fears my family, especially me. I’m Puck Kelly, otherwise known as Punky; the lad ye don’t want to double cross.
I don’t do feelings or emotions. I never have…until she walks into my world.
Babydoll is a liar and a thief, but I can’t stay away. We both thrive in the darkness because that’s where our demons can play.
No word af a lie, sixteen years later, those monsters still haunt my dreams. But every monster is scared of somethin’…and that somethin’ is me.
No more hiding in the shadows because I’m huntin’ youse.
Run, wee monsters, run.
6. Still Beating by Jennifer Hartmann
When Cora attends her sister’s birthday party, she expects at most a hangover or a walk of shame. She doesn’t anticipate a stolen wallet, leaving her stranded and dependent on Dean—her arch nemesis and ultimate thorn in her side.
And she really doesn’t anticipate waking up in shackles in a madman’s basement.
To make matters worse, Dean shares the space in his own set of chains.
After fifteen years of teasing, insults, and practical jokes, the ultimate joke seems to be on them. The two people who always thought they’d end up killing each other must now work together if they want to survive.
But Cora and Dean have no idea their abductor has a plan for them. A plan that will alter the course of their relationship, blur the line between hate and love, and shackle them together with far more than just chains.
7. The Mindfuck Series by S.T. Abby
Lana~I didn’t expect him.I didn’t want to fall in love.But I can’t let him go.Logan Bennett makes the world a safer place.He’s brilliant.He’s a hero.He locks away the sick and depraved.But while he’s saving lives, I’m taking them. Collecting the debts that are owed to me.Ten years ago, they took from me. They left me for dead.They should have made sure I stayed dead.Now I’m taking from them.One name at a time.I’ve trained for too long.I’ve been patient.I can’t stop now.Revenge is best served cold…They never see me coming, until I paint their walls red.Logan doesn’t know how they hurt me. He doesn’t know about the screams they ignored. He doesn’t know how twisted that town really is.He just knows people are dying.He doesn’t know he’s in love with their killer.No one suspects a dead girl.And Logan doesn’t suspect the girl in his bed.They’re looking for a monster.Not a girl who loves red.Not a girl in love.I’m a faceless nightmare.At least until I tell them the story they’ve pretended never happened.But in the end, will Logan choose them? Or will we watch them burn together?*
8. Red Thorns by Rina Kent
Sebastian Weaver is the star quarterback and the college’s heartthrob.
Rich. Handsome. Bastard.
Everyone’s attention flocked toward him and all the girls dreamed to be with him.
Not me.
At least, not until he made a move on me.
See, I thought I was stronger than Sebastian’s charms.
I thought I could survive being his target.
I thought wrong.
Little did I know that he will make my most twisted fantasies come true.
Fantasies I didn’t know existed…
9. There Are No Saints by Sophie Lark
Cole Blackwell values control. He’s the hottest sculptor in San Francisco, wealthy, successful, and respected. His only weakness is the dark impulse he carefully conceals…
Mara Eldritch is a nobody. Broke and damaged, she works three jobs while creating paintings no one will ever see.
A chance encounter throws Mara into Cole’s path. When Mara escapes what appears to be certain death, Cole is intrigued. He starts stalking her, realizing there’s more to the struggling misfit than he ever would have guessed.
Cole becomes obsessed with Mara, breaking the rules that keep his true nature hidden. Mara knows he’s dangerous, but Cole is the only person who’s ever recognized her talent.
Cole is teaching Mara to get what she wants… what does he want in return?
10. Corrupt by Penelope Douglas
Erika
I was told that dreams were our heart’s desires. My nightmares, however, became my obsession.
His name is Michael Crist. My boyfriend’s older brother is like that scary movie that you peek through your hand to watch. He’s handsome, strong, and completely terrifying. The star of his college’s basketball team and now gone pro, he’s more concerned with the dirt on his shoe than me.
But I noticed him.
I saw him. I heard him. The things that he did, and the deeds that he hid… For years, I bit my nails, unable to look away.
Now, I’ve graduated high school and moved on to college, but I haven’t stopped watching Michael. He’s bad, and the dirt I’ve seen isn’t content to stay in my head anymore.
Because he’s finally noticed me.
Michael
Her name is Erika Fane, but everyone calls her Rika.
My brother’s girlfriend grew up hanging around my house and is always at our dinner table. She looks down when I enter a room and stills when I am close. I can always feel the fear rolling off of her, and while I haven’t had her body, I know that I have her mind. That’s all I really want anyway.
Until my brother leaves for the military, and I find Rika alone at college. In my city. Unprotected.
The opportunity is too good to be true, as well as the timing. Because you see, three years ago she put a few of my high school friends in prison, and now they’re out.
We’ve waited. We’ve been patient. And now every last one of her nightmares will come true.
11. The Devil by Ashley Jade
They’ll tell you I seduced them. Used my looks and body to lure them into my playground.
They’ll tell you I’m a sinner. A demon who held them captive with temptation and lust.
They’ll tell you I’m evil. A monster obsessed with the both of them.
They’ll tell you they made a deal with the devil.
What they won’t tell you…is how much they liked it.
12. The Bad Guy by Celia Aaron
Camille was a damsel, one who already had her white knight.
But I wanted her for myself.
So I took her.
Every fairy tale has a villain, someone waiting in the wings to rip it all down. A scoundrel who will set the world on fire if that means he gets what he wants. That’s me.
I’m the bad guy.
13. Antichrist by Amo Jones
Meraki Mallory lived two lives. The one that everyone thought she did, and the one she worked hard to hide. She burned with her demons instead of running from them, but when Niko Davis rode back into town with a bag full of secrets, she knew she would need to start hiding them instead. Niko knew her inside and out, and if he saw even a smidge of her soul, he would see that she was no longer the girl he left behind…
When the president of the New York chapter of the Seven Knights MC dies, he passes the gavel down to Niko… but unknown to anyone else, that’s not the only thing he left him.
Niko fights for what’s his, and he’s only ever claimed one person in his life—Meraki. So when he rips away the walls she built around herself with his bare teeth, the secrets that she has so fiercely hidden away all of these years suddenly bleed onto the four unmarked graves laid out in front of his steel-cap boots…
It started with a bond that destroyed everyone around them…
…it ends with blood.
14. Requiem of the Soul by N. Knight, A. Zavarelli
I was born with noble blood in my veins.
Heir to a powerful dynasty.
Wealth. Power. Aristocracy.
Temptations too dangerous to resist.
Until someone tried to steal it all.
Scarred and broken, I emerged from the flames.
Now I’ve returned to take what’s mine.
Revenge.
The first item on my agenda?
Make Ivy Moreno my wife.
Second?
Bend her until she breaks.
15. Dollar Series by Pepper Winters
Pennies
Once upon a time, I was an eighteen-year-old psychology student.
Now, I’m a man’s property.
Stolen and sold, I’ve been decorated in bruises since the day my world changed two years ago.
I suffer in silence, I crave freedom, but I never break.
I can’t.
Until he arrives.
Elder Prest, the only man to look at me and see me. The only man more ruthless than my owner.
Dollars
Once upon a time, I was a mute captive who wished for death.
Now, I’m stowed away on a yacht.
Saved and taken, the thief who stole me demands my voice, my past, my everything.
I won’t give in.
But Elder refuses to take no for an answer.
He pushes and cajoles, slowly discovering who I am. Until I find out he plays the cello to escape his demons, all while his music conjures mine.
16. Mischief Night by Delaney Foster
The Brotherhood.
There was only one way in and one way out: death.
Power.
That was the code we lived by. It was like a religion in our world. Men would fight for it. Die for it. Kill for it.
Sacrifice.
It was a way of life. Family. Freedom. Our very souls. Everything we had came at a price.
Love.
That was the biggest illusion of all.
I f*cked up and fell in love with the enemy. She’s too good for me, too good for this world I’ve been bred to conquer. But I couldn’t stay away. When I was near her, the monster beneath the surface begged to be set free.
She was untainted. I wanted to desecrate her.
She was flawless. I wanted to ruin her.
She was light. I wanted to drag her into the darkness.
She was forbidden. I took her anyway.
I crossed a line and started a war. Both of our families were out for blood.
The only question is, who will bleed first?
17. Rebel by Callie Hart
Sophia
Sometimes, you don’t mean to become another person. Sometimes the choice is made for you, and pretending is the only thing that keeps you going. When Alexis Romera is taken and her kidnappers find her fake ID in her purse, she must become Sophia in order to keep her family safe. Revealing her real identity to the man she’s sold to would be easy enough, but can she trust him? Hell bent on revenging the murder of his uncle, Rebel doesn’t seem all that interested in playing things safe.
In fact, nothing about the secretive, dark and brooding MC president seems safe at all.
Rebel
What do you do when the man who raised you is murdered, and the only witness is kidnapped girl who’s being sold as a sex slave? You buy her, of course. As president to the most powerful motorcycle club in America, Rebel isn’t lacking in power. There are strings the man can pull, and entire criminal organisations and corporate businesses alike would fall to their knees. However, along with such power comes intense interest. The DEA have their eye fixed solely on the MC…and they’re just waiting for Rebel to trip up.
Getting Sophia to testify is the only way to bring the Los Oscuros cartel down. The beautiful, dark haired, dark eyed woman is belligerent and uncooperative and unlikely to bend to his will, but Rebel has a few tricks up his sleeve to make her compliant–he’ll charm her until she’s bending over backwards to please him.
Of course, falling for her might cause a few hiccups along the way…
18. Saint by Ruby Vincent
Girl winds up in the wrong place at the wrong time.
She witnesses four gods of beauty and brutality murder some poor sap, and she’s stupid enough to get caught.
Come on. You know what happens next.
You know they tracked her… me… down.
I don’t need to tell you that they claimed me. Ripped me from my safe, perfect world and bound me in chains to their throne.
All of that is obvious.
It’s the part where they corrupted me, dragged me into their world of death and destruction, made me theirs in every way I didn’t know was possible, and I became a soldier in a war that will bring all of Cinco City to its knees…
…that’s when it gets interesting.
19. Ricochet by Keri Lake
Three years ago, I had everything.
A beautiful wife.
A son.
A reason for living.
Until a ruthless task force, assembled under Mayor Michael Culling, with a brutal strategy to make the streets of Detroit ‘safe’, ripped away everything I loved in a deadly hunt called The Culling.
They tried to kill me, too. I wish they had. Now I’m cursed by the memories of that night, and the words I whispered to my dying wife.
A promise—to avenge the wrong and set it right.
I’m no longer Nick Ryder. I’m a masked vigilante. Faceless. Loveless. Fearless. A man with nothing left to lose—one who’s seen the dark and violent truth behind the city’s flawless veneer.
Michael Culling doesn’t know who I am. Or what I want. All he knows is that I’ve kidnapped his beautiful wife.
An eye for an eye—isn’t that how the saying goes? And Aubree Culling is the perfect pawn to destroy him.
If she doesn’t destroy me first.
20. His to Keep by Lydia Goodfellow
Stolen in broad daylight on her way home from school, for Ava Hanlon, the nightmare is only just beginning. So young and achingly naïve, Ava is no match for her depraved new master, Father Mathew Aaron, a well-respected priest, and a man hellbent on consuming her innocence to the very last drop.
There is no hope. No light. There is only Callum. A troubled, tormented young man imprisoned in the same room as her. As each day slips by without rescue, all that is left is this fierce, dark entity stirring between them—something far more threatening to her virtue than even Father Aaron’s obsessive game. Something so powerful, it may just make her want to stay for keeps.
21. Just Like Heaven by Trilina Pucci
He’s a criminal—an abomination. We’re wrong in every way.
If only I could’ve convinced my heart.
His lips whispered promises of all the stars in the sky.
I dreamt of a love that would last forever.
We were gorgeously young and desperate for one another.
But we’re star-crossed.
Fate had decided our course.
Leaving us to cling to each other as we crumbled to ash.
His need became possession.
My innocence turned jaded.
Our families declared war.
All that remained was hate.
But Calder was raised by wolves. The rules didn’t apply.
I was his until he said otherwise—for better or for worse.
Our love story is bathed in crimson and drenched in bullets.
Because sometimes, Romeo comes with tattoos, guns, and a taste for blood.
22. Torment by Dylan Page
How did I get here? Broken, bruised, and mentally shattered. For most of my life, my older stepbrother, Shay, was my hero, my rock, and my best friend. The one I knew I could always rely on. For many years, I accepted everyone and everything around me. But as I grew up, the veil was lifted, and I slowly came to understand how f*cked up it all really is.
These men, who I considered uncles and close family friends, are members of the dominant MC, The Celtic Beasts. Shay is not only a proud member. He is the one they send in to do their dirty work. For some reason, this tough, muscled, terrifying guy, needs me to ground and comfort him. But I have always had bigger plans. Bigger dreams. I don’t want to be trapped here, in this life that is dark, bloody and violent. I want to get out, escape… but Shay has other plans for me.
What do you do when your protector becomes the very root of your torment?
23. Crawl by Audrey Rush
When I first see Remedy, I know she’s mine. I stalk her for months, learning her desires and secrets, until I know exactly what she craves.
She needs pleasure ripped from her soul like it doesn’t belong to her anymore.
The only way to get my mind off of her is to take another life, and yet I know she’s taking my life, one breath at a time.
But I don’t care.
I’m going to give Remedy exactly what she needs, and I’ll kill anyone who gets in my way.
One day, Remedy will crawl, offering everything to me, even her life.
But my biggest mistake will be offering her my love.
Because if this is love, it will kill us.
24. King by T. M. Frazier
Homeless. Hungry. Desperate.
Doe has no memories of who she is or where she comes from.
A notorious career criminal just released from prison, King is someone you don’t want to cross unless you’re prepared to pay him back in blood, sweat, sex or a combination of all three.
King’s future hangs in the balance. Doe’s is written in her past. When they come crashing together, they will have to learn that in order to hold on, sometimes you have to first let go.
25. Debt by Nina Jones
I don’t know what I was thinking when I hired someone to attack me. Maybe I was bored, or lonely, or there was a void so deep inside of me that I needed something explosive to fill it.
It was supposed to be safe. A thrill. A way to break through the monotony of everyday life. It was an illusion of danger that I could walk away from as soon as it was over.
Except that it wasn’t. Because I had been in danger long before I ever invited it into my life.
My mission is almost complete. The bubbling boil of vengeance that heats my blood might finally simmer.
She is the last piece of the puzzle. Once I destroy her, everyone who ever hurt me will have paid their debt.
It was supposed to be quick and easy, but as soon as I met her it got complicated.
Very complicated.
26. Hitched by Lauren Biel
Lex
The moment I open the car door and see her sweet face, I know I’m making a mistake. By offering to give me a ride, so is she. I spot the rabbit’s foot hanging from the rear-view mirror. It’s not her lucky day.
I take her with me as I run from the law. Despite being a felon and a documented sociopath, I only mean for Selena to be a ride to the border. But somewhere along the way she stirs up feelings I’ve long thought myself incapable of.
She’s my rabbit, my sweet little bunny, and I need to teach her how to run from me so I can catch her and show her what it’s like to be devoured by the predator she should fear.
Danger lurks in every corner, and the risk of getting caught grows by the day. What will I do once she takes me to my destination? Will I let her go or do something much worse? Can we find some way to stay together when the world wants to pull us apart?
27. Born Darkly by Trisha Wolfe
He challenged her sanity.
She shattered his reality.
They dared each other…to the brink of madness.
A dark and twisted maze awaits criminal psychologist London Noble when she falls for her patient, convicted serial killer, Grayson Pierce Sullivan. As she unravels the traps, her sanity tested with each game, she’s forced to acknowledge the true evil in the world around her.
28. Bang by E.K. Blair
They say when you take revenge against another you lose a part of your innocence.
But I’m not innocent.
I haven’t been for a very long time.
My innocence was stolen from me. Taken was the life I was supposed to have. The soul I was born with. The ruby heart embedded in a life full of hopes and dreams.
Gone.
Vanished.
I never even had a choice.
I mourn that life. Mourn the what-ifs.
Until now.
I’m ready to take back what was always meant to be mine.
But every plan has a fatal flaw. Sometimes it’s the heart.
29. Skeleton King by Charity B.
In this town, I’m free from shame
A place where everyone knows my name
Glamorizing corpses to feed a need
That’s why they call me Skeleton King
They all worship me, but they don’t know the real me
All they see is my painted face
Truth is, I’m terrified, all the hope inside me died
Death and cold will forever be my morbid fate
Then she showed me something more
Somehow stealing death’s allure
30. Bait by Jade West
A stranger online. Dark hair and even darker eyes that knew my dirty desires before I did.
A fantasy that should never be spoken. But he pulled the confession from me.
And now he’s coming for me.
Rough. Dirty. Dangerous.
It’s supposed to be one night to get me off and make me forget.
He’ll make me his and I’ll pretend I don’t want him to.
I’ll run and he’ll chase.
Because I asked him for this.
I begged him for this.
Tonight, in the darkness, he’s the hunter.
And I’m the bait.
31. Bad Apple by Selena
The three arrogant and infuriatingly gorgeous brothers own the school and everyone in it. The girls want to date them, and the boys want in their posse. They hate people like me—a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who has no interest in playing by the rules in their twisted games.
I just want to leverage my scholarship to get into a good college and out of this hellhole. But that requires tangling with the cruel tyrants who run the place and make everyone bow at their feet.
When I refuse to bow to Royal Dolce, the king of the elite, he set his sights on me. Royal takes what he wants, and suddenly, he wants me.
He thinks he can break me like the girls who came before. But I have secrets of my own to protect, and I won’t go down without a fight.
32. The Paper Swan by Leylah Attar
You can either choose love or you can choose hate, because where one lives, the other will die.”
Kidnapped a day short of her twenty-fourth birthday, Skye Sedgewick struggles to uncover her captor’s motives. Damian Caballero is not only impossible to read, but also dark, troubled, and unflinchingly brutal.
For twenty-one days, Skye holds on. But on Day Twenty-Two, she yearns for the sweet slumber of death. Because on Day Twenty-Two, Skye realizes that her only way out means certain death for one of the two men she loves.
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