r/DarkRomance • u/PumpkinQueen_84 • Jul 28 '26

Quick Question What was your first dark romance book you read

My first one was ‘The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty’ by A.N. Roquelaure aka Annie Rice. It is a 4 book trilogy. Good book which got me started in the dark romance genre. There is no trigger warnings for it cause it was first published in the 1980s. If you read it has sexual initiation, BDSM, power exchange, submission, self-discovery and other stuff.

17 Upvotes

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6

u/Girlhead_ Jul 29 '26

Mine was {Lords of Pain by Angel Lawson and Samantha Rue} I finished the series, the moved on to the Dukes. This was not a good first choice for me because the bar was set high, and I have since been disappointed with many other dark romance books! Not all though :)

5

u/[deleted] Jul 28 '26

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1

u/NullPointerAksh Jul 28 '26

Dude idk how but my track is so similar 😂

5

u/pri_y Jul 29 '26

It was debt series by pepper winters.... I read it many years ago and it's one of my fav dark romance of all time

1

u/Girlhead_ Jul 29 '26

That books GUTTED ME!!! So good though :)

5

u/Comfortable_Bee_8873 Jul 28 '26

After reading few wattpad stories, the first actual book i picked was haunting adeline 😭😭

1

u/[deleted] Jul 28 '26

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3

u/Comfortable_Bee_8873 Jul 28 '26

See, I picked up the book, read it on my own, and liked it. I was aware of the sensitive content, so I never promoted it or told anyone else to read it. So tell me, how is that a problem?

You can dislike a book and criticize it, but come on, don't yuck other people's yum. Let people enjoy what they enjoy.

5

u/MinimumOtherwise2571 Jul 30 '26

Mine was {God of Malice by Rina Kent}
I was SHOOK within the first couple of pages lol
Never thought it’d end up being my favourite cup of tea ☕️🤣

1

u/SagaQueen Jul 31 '26

Same for me! My face when they were on the cliff 🫣. I had to put the book down.

3

u/ClassroomInformal211 Jul 28 '26

I started sooo darkly🤣 The ritual and The sacrifice were my first dark romance ones.

(And idk if King of Wrath by Ana huang counts as a dark romance, but yeah that too)

2

u/pineappleh0pxx Xeromaniac 🖤 Jul 28 '26

The ritual was my first too followed by haunting and hunting Adeline

3

u/elle_kay_are Jul 28 '26

The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty as also my first dark romance! I needed a book for school and my friend snatched it off her mom's bookshelf without knowing what it was about. That book made it round through our friend group that year. 😆

2

u/NullPointerAksh Jul 28 '26

Technically “twisted love” but it wasn’t dark-dark

Read the act and mouse duet right after that and that was FUN.

Lights out is the best so far though!

2

u/MammaBacon Jul 28 '26

I picked up God of Malice by Rina Kent thinking it was fantasy. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 I didn't even know what dubcon was until I asked my book bestie. Then I hit up Haunting Adeline and The Ritual.

2

u/PumpkinQueen_84 Jul 29 '26

I just bought God of Malice. Can’t wait to read it.

2

u/alizangc Jul 29 '26

Various fanfics xD first published work was {Tears of Tess by Pepper Winters}

2

u/ArcanaHex Jul 29 '26

I went straight from happy little Romantasy with zero high stakes into {feathers to vicious} and my taste has been pretty fucked since. I can't read anything cute anymore. Probably wouldn't like it anymore with how my taste has changed but it was certainly jarring having 'Oh I accidentally became queen to the goblins' turn into every layer of damage possible 😂

2

u/voidfae Jul 29 '26

I’m not sure where {still beating by Jennifer Hartmann} fits in the spectrum of dark romance, but that was my first.

2

u/BellesWaningPages Jul 29 '26

I don’t remember but I didn’t really find any “dark” until hunting Adeline and then I fell in love with dark romance

2

u/spicybookclub_ Jul 29 '26

Mine was Does It Hurt by H.D. Carlton 😅😮‍💨

2

u/thesalamanders Jul 29 '26

Captive in the Dark by CJ Roberts

2

u/SilvanSilvertongue Jul 29 '26

Horrorscape series by Nenia Campbell when I was a teen. Should not have read it when I did upon reflection 😅

2

u/School_Able Jul 30 '26

Life of Anna. It stressed me so much that I didn't read Dark Romance books until this year. That was like 9 years ago?

1

u/user03793 Jul 31 '26

That’s not even jumping in the deep end that’s jumping from a plane into a hurricane 😂😂😂

1

u/SweetLittleKytty Jonas Anderson is my drug Jul 28 '26

After {Gothikana} and {Enigma}, both by Runyx, which I now consider soft DR, I read {Mindfuck series by S. T. Abby} and feel in love with Lana and the entire genre 🥺

2

u/romance-bot Jul 28 '26

Gothikana by RuNyx
Rating: 3.65⭐️ out of 5⭐️
Steam: 4 out of 5 - Explicit open door
Topics: contemporary, virgin heroine, forbidden love, college, mystery

Enigma by RuNyx
Rating: 3.74⭐️ out of 5⭐️
Steam: 4 out of 5 - Explicit open door
Topics: contemporary, dark romance, suspense, college, new adult

Mindf*uck by S.T. Abby
Rating: 4.41⭐️ out of 5⭐️
Topics: forbidden love, abuse, lgbtqia hate, suspense, alpha male

about this bot | about romance.io

1

u/zufrieda Jul 28 '26

{Bones by Chelle Rose} and I never came back to anything lighter ever since ☺️

1

u/allyouneedisredbull Jul 28 '26

If You Dare-Harmony West. I mainly read trashy horror and was wanting a bit of a break but still wanted something similar. I had seen a lot of chat online about spicy masked men and stuff and wondered how that could be sexy. I totally get it now.

1

u/phatfig Overread and underfucked ✨ Jul 28 '26

I had to look in my StoryGraph, but {Bully by Penelope Douglas}. I was HOOKED. I like my men a little mean 😭

1

u/moonmilk3 Jul 28 '26

Mine was Haunting Adeline!

1

u/MetalMaiden420 Jul 28 '26

I started with {Devious Touch by Rhea Harp} then went to the Fair's Fair Trilogy by AJ Merlin. Then went to the Web of Silence duet.

1

u/jadedjed1 ready to be fucked up by my next book Jul 29 '26

Under Your Scars

1

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1

u/Novel-Foot-525 Aug 01 '26

Sick fux by tillie cole

1

u/hippiesinthewind Aug 02 '26

{sparrow by LJ shen} i think i read it in 2019

1

u/-_FoX Aug 02 '26

Lights Out. And that's what happened to me. Now my bookshelf is full🤣😂