Content Highlights

• Discussing DNF's
• Ranking order of S1 faves

As we close the chapter on this season, we're already looking ahead to the dark romance tales that beckon us into their shadowy embrace. Join us as we bid adieu to the books of season 1 that have been our companions through every twist and turn, and extend an invitation to our listeners to share their own memorable moments. The curtain may be falling on season one, but the stage is set for a season two that promises even more gripping narratives to sink our teeth into. Don't miss out as we continue our exploration of the love stories that dare to venture into the night.

Hello listeners, for this special episode we are doing a season one wrap up. We're going to kind of hit on the books that we DNF'd that actually didn't make it into the podcast or finish reading in our buddy reads, and then rank all of the books from season one from least a favorite to top favorite. So that's what you're in for on this episode. And we're going to start off with the DNF's. Yep, which DNF stands for, did not finish, and the first one on the series is the Bay Falls series. So that's not by like Jaxson something.

Oh yeah, we probably should have pulled here I'm pulling it up right now. Okay.

Jaxson Kidman. Okay, the Bay Falls High series. Sorry.

Yep, so this, so this series, like is a lie. So there's three books in like with the original group and then I think it continues with a different, a different gal. I got to book I think I was halfway through book two when I finally gave up and couldn't, couldn't read anymore, and I think you actually finished it, or at least I did finish it I.

I did finish it, yeah, but I only did the first trilogy. Yes, yeah. If I remember correctly, I was super excited because I thought it was going to be your reverse harem, but it turned out to not be a reverse harem and that pissed me off. Is this the one where she runs into the tree?

Yes.

Okay, yeah.

That's literally the only thing that kept us going for well for me, like the first one and a half books. And then I was like, oh my God, I just need to know why she ran into a tree at this point, like I don't care about anything else.

Yeah, I was upset because this is classified as a reverse harem and it is a lie, and if you lie to me, then we have problems. So I was very upset. She only ends up with one of the guys at the end. It was just I don't. Yeah, no, just don't. This is why I only kept on bringing it, because it's like when are they all going to get together? And we wanted to know why she crashed into the tree right, Because there was like a prologue or foreshadowing of that. And it was yeah, no.

Yeah, just no, I. There was no redeeming quality in. Like the spice was non-existent, slash not good. The guys were irritating. She was so redundant Like she kept saying the same things over and over, so, yeah, I just couldn't. I am not a bully in a romance lover anyway, so this was like I was done.

This, I think, is the one and I hope we're not bashing the wrong series, or at least I'm not bashing this is the one where it's like it's new adults, so they're you know, they're in the final year of high school, but it's this criminal organization or secret side or whatever, and these teenagers are making these grand life decisions for the town and the population and the society and all the things, and that's great.

But then they have this one moment where they become fucking stupid and then make a stupid decision. And I'm pretty sure this is the one where his mom's like you cannot bring her, you have to bring the other girl. And what does he do? He calls his mom and says, oh, I'm not bringing her, I'm bringing so and so and without when they're supposed to have the element of surprise, because they're trying to catch her or like whatever. And I'm like that's fucking stupid, absolutely not. Like you cannot have them in these high positions to be making decisions. And all of a sudden they make a stupid mistake and I'm like let's give away half our plot, no more longer the surprise element, because he was pretty adamant, we can't tell my mom, we can't let my mom find out. Da, da, da, da. And then he just calls her and tells her yeah, I didn't read that, so I can't even.

I'm pretty sure, I'm pretty sure, and this is another thing. I hate it when they don't have the names of the characters in the blurb. I already have issues with remembering shit, and this does not help at all.

That's fair. Yeah, I just couldn't, couldn't get behind it.

Yeah, so that's number one. The second one yeah the second one is that, that's, that's okay, hold on.

Who is that? By me. Confirm this is correct.

Yep.

So this is That Sik Luv by Jescie Hall. How far did you get into this book? Because I finished it. I know you didn't.

I. I think I got to the part where he told her that he buried that dude in her backyard, and that was it.

Oh yeah.

And she said yes to go into the stupid dance with the one dude son and I'm just like no, just just no, I can't. So that was like what I was at 1012 chapters in and I was like absolutely not.

Yeah, so I ended up finishing it, but I ended up skimming a lot of the last, probably at least third, if not half, and it's almost 500 pages, which did not need to happen at all at all.

And so many people raved about this book being about it.

It's phenomenal.

And I'm like what part? Tell me what chapter and I'll read that. Let me see if.

I have. Hold on, I'm going to see if I have any highlights. I just clicked on the wrong thing. Oh yeah, yeah, I don't think I hated Bay Halls Bay, halls Bay Falls Can't get the name right. I can't get the name right. Let's see. Yeah, I have one, two, three, four, five, six.

Oh, I have. No, it's highlighted from that sik luv. I'm surprised. Oh, I have one. This is my one quote that I have. I have 20. It's 13%. Oh shit, it's 13% of the way in the book. He knows the depths of my insanity. Serving time together will have you making friends. You never thought you would keep a company with all the wrong people, the people that find your creative criminal and shine it into something more intriguing and more talented than ever before. Prison is an education One. I gained many skills from that's only God I have.

So there were a lot of like. I mean, there's a ton of religious themes throughout the book and it's twisted. Obviously you're talking with dark romance. Of course it's going to be twisted and I had a hard time with it from the standpoint of it was. Oh my gosh, I used bombastic language. There was so much bombastic language throughout the book that I, like she would go into this long prose and I would come out of the story every single time because it didn't fit the story, the plot, the character, because you have all of this like he would take a verse and he would twist it for it to reference, almost like it was him and she was supposed to ref, like he was supposed to be her God type of thing, and that I was like, okay, whatever, but then to have all of like the religious prose and that it was just so over the top and so it tried to be intellectual and really all it did was bury the entire plot, the story, the characters, under language that didn't need to be used.

And again, my opinion Now Spice I enjoyed the Spice quite a lot in this series, like I don't think I got anything with this far as I, with this far as I read, like there was some tension and some angst, which obviously I'm an angst whore, but yeah, I think the last thing I was reading was maybe I read a little bit further she was they're playing Hunter or he's got her running through the house and she's trying to get out, which that was really hot but it wasn't hot enough to.

I was just like ugh, whatever yeah. It's one of those things I put it down for a break, and then nothing ever pulled me back to it Nothing.

Yeah, but it got better after the first bit. But again you get. You know you have these long pros and you just get totally sucked out of this. Now there were several. This was my favorite scene. He go, they go to this I think it was a club of some sort and Aero and I really liked his name, hated her name, hated her. I've never hated a character's name so much.

What was her name? I don't even remember.

It was Briani B-R-I-O-N-Y. Yeah, I hated it. But they go to this club and she's like being trained by him and unleashed by him, like she's felt all of these like dark urges throughout her life. But because she's been raised to be pure and virgin and, you know, a religious icon, so to speak, in this cult search, whatever she's always pushed to the side. She's always felt wrong and dirty and all these things right. So he's teaching her that these urges are totally normal, it's fine. Blah, blah, blah. So she.

They go to this club and this guy that Aero knows his name is Knox and he like disrespects Aero in some way. I can't remember exactly, but this is when I fell in love with her. Briani, she says I'm not missing anything. Knox, she says to him, her heel indenting the side of his face, and no one, especially not a strong outpim from Detroit, disrespects Aero in front of me. Now open your mouth, she commands, pushing her pretty pink toenail against his lips, and show me how good you can suck. Knox replies marry me, he asks abruptly against her. But I think I'm in love with you, see.

Oh my gosh, that sounds really great, but I do not want to read everything to get to that scene.

That's page 305, chapter 41. Oh, absolutely not, absolutely not. Look at that point. You're well over halfway. That was like seeing her step into this bad ass and take that power back after it being stripped from her for so many years was so cool, so cool. But you didn't need over half the book to get there. So, like, if you can get past the trigger, like always, I'm always like yes, this is a dark romance podcast and you're probably don't have a huge trigger list If you're listening to our podcast. But I always recommend even still double check your triggers. But if you can get past that and then, like the pros, there's some really, really fantastic scenes.

I guess if you're ever filling up to it, you can just mark those pages and I'll just read those pages. Probably not, because you'll probably never read it again and I don't know I'm never going to read it again. I'm like the world. I'm like the world. I'm like the world yeah.

And then I'll just read those pages. That's all. There you go. Okay. So, and then the final book that we DNF'd was slash or pass by. Is it Taylor page? It's T-Y-L-O-R. Tyler, taylor. Sure, taylor, hi Lore, I think you finished it. I got to like the halfway point and I was like this is fucking ridiculous. And then I just wanted to read about what the ritual is that they were preparing for, and then I read the ritual to the end, so I skipped like a chunk. It was absolutely not.

This. I was so excited about this. We picked it right around Halloween, so I was very much in like a horror romance mood and this was not it Now.

Now I love how you set that up. That was great Sorry.

Now here's the thing If you want a parody of a Halloween horror romance, then this is the book for you. Like, if you don't want to go into this, not taking it seriously, thinking it's the camp, it's like watching God, what's a really bad horror movie, but you're just like I can't stop watching it because it's just a train wreck. But it's kind of making me laugh. That's what this book was for me. I just kept getting to points from like this is so stupid, but I can't stop Roach, like I can't stop reading this tree.

I feel like I had some really good. I had had really good potential, especially with like the God and like you know what they were going for and why they were doing it and all the things. I feel like everything else was just trash and I only have one quote from this book.

I don't even know, what was it?

It is because there was rules right.

Yeah.

So, rule 20, constantine, it's okay to fuck the final girl if she's your wife. There was just something about that, I just really enjoyed.

Oh man, I think, when I when I sorry, I think when.

I was looking it up, everybody was like, oh, pay attention to the rules, what's your favorite rule? And I guess that's my favorite rule, even though there might be another one from the chunk that I missed, but I thought that was hilarious.

My favorite. I have a six. I don't, I don't know what that is. We'll go with five, but my favorite is she's. I think they're stalking this guy and she's like it's in her head. She's like yelled at dogs. Another red flag, yes, perfect.

I don't remember that, yeah, but I mean like that's page 144. I also. I did like this one because I just thought it was ironic. It's page 30. He says the idea of poisoning someone keeps the dark thoughts away. You follow me back inside. I put the tea kettle on the stove and turn the burner on. I turned back to him and grinned Exactly. I mean, hey, a girl's got to be prepared, right.

Yeah, she does. So those were the three that were our DNFs that didn't make it.

Yep.

So Jenn wins because she well, maybe we might be tied, because you finished both that sik luv and slasher pass and I finished all three in the trilogy. So I feel like we're tied.

Yeah, I'd say we're tied. Yeah, because she read the three and I read three and a little bit of two of the big boss.

Yeah, that was it Okay. So now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's reflect back on this season's lineup. Jen and I were talking before we jumped on that. We thought that we had more books for this lineup than we do, but apparently that's not the case. It just seems like a lot.

But. But I mean you're talking like Center's Duets 2 books Madison King is 4, bonds at Ty is 5, 6, and Never King is 4. So oh, and Dead Soldiers is 2.

Oh wow, so we only had. Yeah, that's why it feels like it's like, it's a lot.

Yeah, I agree. All right, so bottom of the list. I feel like our bottom is going to be the same.

My last one was Sunshine and the Stalker.

Yeah.

Absolutely, that was no.

Yeah, agreed.

Definitely last. I don't know if our so we have 10 books. Number 10 is Sunshine and the Stalker, for both of us.

Yep.

What's your number?

nine I feel like we might be. Well, I don't know, you struck the hell out of me with your ranking, so maybe it's not going to be the same. I'm going to go. Perfect Strangers that's my number nine. I thought it might be. I thought it might be yeah, yeah, just not okay at all.

Yeah, it's the middle part that I haven't quite got figured out yet in the ranking. But yeah, I knew that those two were definitely going to be at the bottom, but mostly Sunshine and the Stalker for sure was going to be 10 because there was no Stalking and that pissed me off.

Yeah, agreed, like he just comes up behind her or she comes up behind him, yeah. Yeah, the middle is going to be hard. I've got my next one? The next one for me is number eight. Yeah, and I bet you can figure out which one it is.

The ritual.

Yeah, just fuck that book. Just listen, if Perfect Strangers and Sunshine and the Stalker weren't so bad, the ritual would be at the bottom 100%.

This is okay, I can't get my words out because I'm stuck. I have an idea of what my number eight is, but I feel like I might change it after we do this ranking. I feel like my number eight is Do you want to take a guess?

Yeah, I think it's so quick. No, no Okay which one is it?

Dead Soldiers vs Tailors Really. So when I'm thinking about ranking these, I'm thinking about them. Am I ever going to reread them?

Okay, all right, that's fair yeah.

That's how I'm looking at these, because some of them are really great, some of them are not, some of them are in the middle, but I'm like, how Do you differentiate? Yeah, yeah. So my thought was would I reread Dead Soldiers vs Tailors? And the answer is no, no.

I don't agree.

So what's your number seven? This is the seven through four is where I'm kind of stuck at right now.

Oh man, yeah yeah, I like Dead Soldiers for seven. Yeah, yeah, because there's not another one on there that I don't like more. Yeah, final answer.

So my number seven that I have right now written down is Madison Kate.

Really.

Yeah, because out of all the tape, james, I read that one was my least favorite.

But I feel like that's not fair. We're comparing them to each other, not other books, I know.

I know, I know, I know, I know. But then I'm looking at everything else that's kind of left over and I feel like I would reread all the other ones before I would read Madison Kate again.

I think we're only going to be off by one, because I mean that would be my next. Yeah, that would be my next one too.

See my next one, or what's your. So that's your number six. Yeah, so my next one is the Sinners duet.

Yeah, I really like the Sinners duet. I know, but I can't decide where it's going to land. Okay, hold on. I had to write mine down. Yeah, I'm going to have to write mine down too, because I'm getting lost. Not that that takes a whole lot, okay, yeah, all right, I've landed.

Okay, so what was your six? Your six was Madison Kate. Yeah, okay, so my six was Sinners duet. Okay, so your five, your number five.

Hold on no-transcript.

Oh okay, mine was the ritual, the ritual's number five for me.

Did you ever read the?

other two? No, no, I'll get to them one day, okay, so what's your number four?

Never King, the Never King series.

That's my number. Four too, no.

Yeah, like I could see mine and, especially because they are such short reads, potentially see myself reading it again. The spice was really good. I really like the story. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, and your number three, Sinners Dewette. I really liked it. I mean, it was in our, it was in my. I think it was an honorable mentor, but I think it was number six for my top reads of 2023.

I think it was your number five.

I feel like I had to throw in a dark romance in there and I just I did. I really liked that. I love their, I love their story, I love their relationship.

So my number three is Flip Trick.

I am shocked that that is as high up on your list as it was, because I feel like you did not like it at all. I didn't.

But then I'm looking at everything else and I would reread Flip Trick, probably before I ever read the Vicious Kings, and I would reread it before the ritual or any of the other ones that are behind it, because out of all of them that one had the most angst and of course I would flip through and flip trick. I would skip the parts that I didn't like. That pissed me off, and then imagine the ending that you and I created, and then I'd be happy. It was really hard, like, like I said, like six through three, like was really like I didn't. Maybe three and six might flip, maybe Sinner's Duet would be my third and then Flip Trick would be my sixth. I'm not sure. I just knew what my last two were going to be and I knew what my top two were going to be. That was it, everything else, I'm just winging it.

Yeah, top two and top three or top two and bottom three were easy, but yeah, everything else is more difficult.

Yeah, so I feel like this is where we're going to be backwards, maybe on the top two. What's your?

number two Well dang, yeah, I think we might be backwards, but I would also be totally okay with the way you rank it too. So my number two is bond or yeah, bonds.

And my number two is Butcher and Blackbird.

Yeah, which I mean is is fair. I feel like that's almost, and I know we're doing like we're ranking the books from the season, but I feel like that's almost like apples and oranges. Like in a real world scenario, they'd be tied.

Oh, I agree, because they would be in their own categories. Yes, I agree with that 100%, but I have reread bonds at least three times just this year. In itself, I have only read Butcher and Blackbird once.

Yeah, I've only read it. I've only read both of them once, but I have the audio of Butcher and Blackbird and I've started it. I just haven't finished it yet.

So that wasn't too bad. We had a good season one. Season two is going to be really great too.

I'm so excited for season two. I mean, I've loved this so much and I'm so excited to do more with it in the coming season, because my life went off the rails for the last three months I feel like Two months, two and a half months, whatever it was so I'm really excited to be able to like really dive into things for season two.

Shall we close out? Yeah, okay, listeners, why don't you go ahead and rank season one with us and tell us what your favorite is? Okay, readers, and where does the darkness rate with you? Thank you for joining us on the journey into the shadows of love, where dark romance stories come to light.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Bones of the Story as much as we did. If you did, don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. Your feedback means the world to us.

And to stay updated on all things dark romance, follow us on social media. You can find us on Instagram, tiktok and YouTube.

We'd also love to hear from you, Share your thoughts, ideas or even your own dark romance stories with us. Drop us a line at BonesOfTheStory at gmailcom.

Remember our next tantalizing episode is just around the corner, so keep your hearts open and your senses sharp.

Until then, embrace the darkness and let the stories continue to stir your deepest desires.

This is Mistie and Jenn signing off from Bones of the Story.

Transcribed by https://podium.page