I picked up Lights Out by Navessa Allen on vibes alone, if I’m being honest. I thought the cover was gorgeous and hearing this was a dark, stalker romance, with folks comparing this to Butcher & Blackbird by Brynne Weaver had me very excited. Well, it is not like Butcher and Blackbird at all. This was, at its core, simply a dark erotic romance with little plot, and there’s nothing wrong with that!
The little tag line of the couple who slays together, stays together, and the comparison to another serial killer romance, had me going into this thinking we were getting murder along with stalking. That was really not the case. This entire novel is held together only by kinky smut with the barest plot that honestly wasn’t needed. It gets 3.5 stars because the spice and kink was well written and once I realized that’s what this book was about, I simply accepted it and enjoyed the ride. Female main character Aly is a trauma nurse and loves going home to watch thirst traps on tiktok of masked men. Fairly normal. Male main character Josh is one of those masked men thirst traps. Small world, they both live in the same town and he tracks her down, installs some surveillance, and hacks into cameras. This is pretty much the extent of the stalking. I guess one of the things I hate about “stalker” romances is that they’re over in a second. I think Josh stalks Aly for approximately 1-2 days and then they meet and are pretty much together 24/7. That isn’t a stalker romance. I had this same problem with Haunting Adeline. Stalking should be about the build-up, almost like a slow-burn romance. But, whatever, that’s a me issue, a technicality.
What really dragged this book down was simply the attempt at having plot and lack of tension. There wasn’t any tension between the main characters, despite Aly saying she was scared because Josh’s POV would come right afterward and we’d hear how he’d never do anything to harm her, how he messed up by not thinking things through, how he would be making up for it. I liked it, but it didn’t give any tension because we knew Aly was okay with it too. There’s no tension in Aly trying to figure out her masked man’s identity and there’s no tension when the ONE ACCIDENTAL MURDER takes place (again, despite making this sound like a serial killer romance.) Everything was always going to be okay and you could feel it as you read, which left me wondering what the point of the story was other than an excuse for stringing sex scenes together. If the stakes were higher for the murder, this would’ve gotten a higher rating. And if they got rid of the murder and just had it be sex scenes with Aly trying to figure out what is happening for the entire story, I would’ve given this a higher rating. Ultimately, it attempted to do two things at once and did not do either well.
If you like Haunting Adeline but thought that was ‘too dark’, you’ll definitely love Lights Out by Navessa Allen. If you’re used to reading something darker that can keep tension fraught and plot interesting, this might leave you unfulfilled. I think I’d recommend this to anyone that wants to read smut featuring their preferred kinks and don’t care about much else. This feels better than Haunting Adeline, but not as good as AJ Merlin’s Pleasure and Prey series.
