This was a lot. I am still kind of processing it. It’s not that it was bad, but it’s a lot. By far the spiciest book I have ever read, and I have read all of Sarah J Maas’ books. If you know, you know. This is just um. I don’t know. Aly is an emergency room nurse who likes to wind down after a tough shift with a glass of wine and her favorite thirst trap, a man covered in blood in a mask. Josh is the said, masked man, with a sad past. One night, Aly gets a little tipsy, texts a past hook up her fantasy for him to wear a mask and chase her, and wouldn’t you know it, Josh is his roommate and sees it and is like, bet. Let’s see if this is what he is really like. Red flag number one. He has already started stalking her. He might have seen her once, during one of her hookups with his roommate, and from then on, he found out where she lives, works, and her work schedule. He is a skilled hacker, so it’s not hard for him to find her profile online and learn how to break into her house. He breaks into her house, tapes a thirst trap, and then leaves. Aly is understandably freaked out, but is also turned on. Hey, I am not kink-shaming here, but Josh didn’t just break into her house. He hacked into the hospital security cameras to watch her while she works. Breaks into her car to drive her home because it’s snowing. That’s the second red flag. He breaks all these boundaries and then love bombs her afterwards. Buying her food, shoveling her driveway, doing other little things to make her feel taken care of. I do think he does care for her and that nothing is malicious. Still, as someone who knows what emotional abuse feels like, this feels like it. It is explained that he is like this because of his childhood and the abuse his father inflicted on him and his mother; he has spent years scrubbing the internet of them to shield them. There are a few people in his life that he loves, and knowing what they do at all times is the only way to keep them safe. That being said, all the sexual activity is consensual, and Aly really responds to the first being scared to death and then taken care of afterwards, so again, who am I to judge? Things with their relationship kind of take a turn for me. Once they get together, they become so codependent on each other that I just find them annoying. The last third of the book was kind of a slog to get through. The spiciness kind of took a back seat, so that didn’t help. Two other books in the series follow a couple of the supporting characters. I am not sure if I even want to give them a chance. Who knows. I guess I’ll add them to the list.