A reading diary about dark romance, serialized fiction, and the stuff we reach for when the lights are out and sleep isn't coming.
What I've been reading at the edges of the genre — mafia, gothic, morally grey, slow-burn. Notes on the books, the tropes, and the people who keep coming back for them.
The subgenre has gone from TikTok curiosity to full literary category in three years. Here are the eight books I'd hand to someone who wanted to understand what the obsession is actually about, and the three I'd tell them to skip.
New pieces are written on Saturdays, most of them. Something from this section will appear in the next few weeks. If you'd like to be told when it goes up, join the reading list below.
Saturday mornings, before most people are awake, one email goes out. Two or three short entries, a recommendation, sometimes a question. No ads. No tracking pixels. Just the journal.