Violent Delights

I’ll admit, I side-eyed the premise of *Violent Delights* at first. Another ‘dark romance’? But within minutes, May’s writing disarmed me—not with sweetness, but with precision. This isn’t a love story; it’s a dissection of how power curdles into obsession, and how even the most ‘consensual’ dynamics can rot from the inside. The audiobook’s strength lies in its narration: Holly Warren’s performance as the blonde ‘submissive’ is a revelation. She doesn’t play victim or vixen; she’s a woman recalibrating her own limits in real time, her voice cracking with rage one moment, dripping with calculation the next. Jean-Paul Mordrake, meanwhile, avoids the trap of cartoonish villainy. His narration makes the male lead’s cruelty feel *earned*—like a man who’s convinced himself he’s the hero of this story, right up until he isn’t. That said, the pacing stumbles in the middle. May’s strength is dialogue, and the rare expository stretches (especially around backstory) drag like a fingernail down a chalkboard. I also wished the production had leaned harder into atmospheric sound design—this is a story about confinement, yet the audio never fully *sounds* claustrophobic. Still, the final act is a gut-punch, a reminder that the most violent delights aren’t the ones that bruise the skin, but the ones that rewrite your sense of self. If you’re tired of romance that softens its edges, this one will leave marks.