Review: My Dark Romeo by LJ Shen + Parker S Huntington

It was supposed to be a harmless kiss at a lavish debutante ball.
A clandestine moment with a handsome stranger.

But unlike his namesake, my Romeo isn’t driven by love.
He’s fueled by revenge.

To him, I’m a chess piece. Leverage.
His rival’s betrothed.

To me, he is a man deserving of poison.
A dark prince I refuse to marry.

He thinks I’ll accept my fate.
Well, I plan to rewrite it.

And in my story, Juliet doesn’t die.
But Romeo? He perishes.

My Dark Romeo is a standalone reluctant arranged marriage romance between a cruel billionaire heir and a feisty heiress unafraid to fight back. It is set in the decadent Dark Prince Road world.

---

This witty dark romance had me from the first page with characters you can’t help but love – or love to hate. A modern retelling of Beauty And The Beast, this story absolutely charmed me. Dallas is a young socialite who’s long been betrothed per a business deal between her father and his friend. She’s not marrying Madison for love but she can live with that because he’s young, handsome and wealthy. Dallas only has one aspiration in life, to be a mother, and she knows Madison will be only too happy to create heirs so she’s okay with this arrangement. She’s sweet and a bit too trusting for her own good so Romeo sets her up to fail. He orchestrates it perfectly so that they’re caught in a compromising situation in front of a crowd. Dallas is horrified to realize she’s just a pawn to him and Romeo did this intentionally.

But it’s even worse when she realizes that her own father agreed to this and just handed her over to Romeo without a second thought. Her new husband is gorgeous but he’s also a tease because he has serious trust issues. His only goal here was to take something from Madison, his enemy, so Romeo has no use for Dallas. In fact, she’s tiresome to him. He thinks she’s vapid and lazy so dismisses her immediately but Dallas refuses to be ignored and wastes no time proving it to her husband.

These two have fantastic banter, full of teasing and sarcasm alike. There’s a mutual attraction but Romeo has some hang-ups and Dallas has needs, so things won’t be easy. I loved these characters and really enjoyed watching them begin to come together, only to pull apart and start over, again and again. Their story was dark and decadent with lots of steam. This is a collaboration between two authors, one of whom I read religiously and the other new to me but the story was seamless. They’ve created an elegant world and characters you have to love. I hope they give us more stories set in this world.