No One Has To Know by Carin Hart

You would think that I know better than to trust BookTok. However, me picking up No One Has to Know by Carin Hart proves I will never learn my lesson. Now, I know that’s a bit unfair of me to say because I did pick up another book by Hart set in this same mob world (review of The Devil’s Bargain coming out next week) and I did like that other book. This one, however, was undone and ruined by the ending.

What I saw on BookTok was that this would be a dark romance. I love dark romance (you’ll see what I mean with upcoming reviews for the Pleasure & Prey series.) I’m not, however, a big fan of dirty cop romance. That one was my bad for not realizing this would be that before picking it up. However, the two stars I’m giving this isn’t based on my personal likes or dislikes. It has more to do with the problems of pacing, and as mentioned earlier, that ending.

Characters, we have dirty cop Mason Burns who is obsessed with sweet florist Angela Havers. Neither is likeable. Mason says he loves Angela, but I never see it. There are plenty of stalker romances, bullymances, etc. where the MMC is deranged and treats the FMC badly, however we still see that there is love there in addition to obsession. Here, even with the dual POV, I never felt that. Characters felt incredibly flat and this might be the reason the relationship just never took off. Even the spice felt boring despite this being a “dark romance.” Firearm barely in play for one part and the rest was boring, especially considering the ‘twist’ at the end.

Speaking of this twist, this entire paragraph is going to be behind a spoiler as I discuss what this end twist is and why it bothered me so badly. View Spoiler » One thing that I need out of a book is for it to follow-through. If you’re doing to be dark, be dark unapologetically. If you’re going to write some fucked up shit, doing it with your whole chest. This would have been a three star read because it was boring to me but I could see where others would enjoy it and it wasn’t wholly disagreeable. Then, we get to the dumb twist at the end. Despite being dual POV and being in Angela’s point-of-view for half the book, we the reader never get the hint that she orchestrated this entire thing and wanted to be kidnapped and noticed by Mason. Turned out she had a journal where she wrote about how she wanted all of these things and orchestrated it and he found out and played it out for her. It cheapened everything that happened in the book. The darkness was taken away. It was as though the author wanted to do dark and then worried that it would be too much and gave herself and readers an out. I don’t read dark romance for an out. I don’t read it for a twist at the end to tell me hey, this was all okay and planned out! Either find a better way to make it clear to readers that this was okay by all parties involved or leave it as dark and one sided. By giving this twist, it takes that away from everything else that happened in the book. Additionally, we get Angela’s POV and yet you’re telling me she never once is like wow this is hot AF and exactly what I was hoping would happen. It just makes no sense for us to be in her point-of-view and never have this crucial information that is suddenly introduced at the end. Just thinking about this again is getting me upset. « Hide Spoiler

Personally, I would not recommend No One Has To Know by Carin Hart. This is one side story that can absolutely be skipped. Instead, I would recommend readers try The Devil’s Bargain by Carin Hart instead because No One Has to Know does an injustice Hart as an author because she can do better and does.