After being disappointed by Haunting Adeline, I ventured deeper into dark, stalker romance and found There Are No Saints by Sophie Lark. Now this is what I was looking for. This is a dark, stalker romance! Cole was a pretty hot male protagonist and definitely not a hero. He is dark and messed up in the head and it was delicious. Mara is a little weird, hit or miss, but definitely feisty. Definitely know, before you get into this, it is dark.
The concept of rival artists that are also rival serial killers is a wild one. I honestly wasn’t sure how it would work but it did! It wasn’t as prominent as I thought it would be but it was extremely important. By that, I mean that the rivalry doesn’t make up the majority of the book but does play a pivotal role. The fact that this is centered around an art community, however, does make this dark romance also feel very hipster and very young. Mara and her friends all feel like poor starving disillusioned artists — because they are and it feels so very young. It’s just such a young mentality to have, to think oh I’m going to struggle so I can make it and it’s so romantic. It isn’t. But, I’m old so what do I know?
Cole is a hot male character but is also very much an asshole. I love it. He doesn’t know why he likes Mara and he doesn’t want to like Mara but is so obsessed he can’t help himself. It’s so toxic and exactly what I wanted to read. He is a stalker and obsessed and what I love is that Lark actually shows this to us. We see him stalk her. We see him be weird about it. And we see him choose when to make his move. It feels more real and the stalking angle is so much better than Haunting Adeline tried to give. Mara is a little weird. She has issues but is trying her best to make her dreams come true. She is feisty as all hell and spiteful. She isn’t some pure and wonderfully good female love interest. Mara has flaws and yes, they’re not as extreme as Cole’s, but they’re still there.
This book was well on its way to getting 4 to 4.5 stars as a rating but I ultimately knocked it down to 3.5 all due to one thing – the ending. I don’t want to get too into it because I don’t want to spoil anyone, but it let me down a little. I felt like we really got things ramped up once Alistair reappeared and everything was so tense and good and then it all kind of fell flat. The final encounter between Mara and Cole wasn’t as sexy as I think they were trying to make it. And then the actual very end was a letdown with Mara making the choices she did and Cole accepting it.
Despite not being as highly publicized as other dark romances, There Are No Saints by Sophie Lark has become a quick favorite. I definitely would recommend this to readers looking for something dark and toxic with killer and stalking elements. Just, don’t cringe at the hipster and haughtiness that breaks through during certain moments.
