Reviews with content warning for Fire/Fire injury - Hunting Adeline

Reviews tagging 'Fire/Fire injury'

Hunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton

81 reviews

naaytaashreads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

“Our mouths are touching the same spot,” she says shakily. “Does that count as kissing?”

“You tell me, little mouse. When I make you cry out for God, does that count as praying?”

The sequel blows my mind.
How was this so FUCKING good.
I thought the first one gave me so much adrenaline, but this one gave me an explosion.
I speed-read this in two days; that's how invested I was in wanting to know what's next, what's happening and how it will end.

Trigger warning, if you read the first book, you know how dark this book can get.
However, in this one, the first half of the book centres around sexual assault, abuse, rape, violence, injury, blood, death, killing and more.
While the second half deals with PTSD, trauma, disease, more violence and sex content of the course.
So, be warned.

While the first half of the book was heartbreaking to read.
It was important for Adeline's character growth and discovery in the second half.
She is by herself getting kidnapped, trapped in the house with these men and being done so much disgusting shit to her; she herself is in survival mode and how it keeps her sane and changes her later on.
Hence, why the first half was kind of a slow burn, as I feel like it was built up to the second half.

I love the different and new personality we get in understanding Zade.
How his mind works, we see his emotions more and understand how he loves Adeline in his dark ways. It was also a character growth for him.

In the second half, we learn and see the changes in Adeline, how her trauma has changed her and how in her way, she is healing together with the people around her, especially her relationship with Zade. It was raw, honest, and dark but such an important topic to talk about, and I feel like H.D Carlton did a good job writing it while intertwining it with the dark plotline, making it naturally addictive.

I love that while in such dark times, we still get the cat and mouse plotline concept.
It brings me such adrenaline, and the newer grown version of the character gave me a new outlook on their relationship and how they have to relearn to love the new version of themselves with each other.

By the end of it, I JUST NEED MORE.
There were so many romance quotes by both of them I DIED.

“Zade may be Hades, but the dark God has never been known to bow for anyone but his woman.”

Content Warnings

bbygirl21's review

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challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

erinmd156's review

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challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

baintexas's review

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challenging dark emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This book. I can’t even adequately explain to you the emotional journey this takes you on. This is about sex trafficking, sexual assault, PTSD, recovery of the victim, and support of the caregivers. But, there is a comprehensive character arc from victim to survivor, which includes, an albeit abbreviated, explicit, heart-wrenching sexual recovery.

Do you know how some dark romance readers read dark romance due to trauma and say it’s helpful with healing? I think this is the embodiment of that concept.

⭐️: 5/5 - and I knew it 1/2 way through. It did not matter how it ended.

🌶: 5/5 - it is extra spicy, but please note this isn’t all traditional sex. See triggers.

Narration: N/A. If there ever is an audible, please make sure to get the kindle version so you can read/see the journal entries

Summary: This is about sex trafficking and sexual assault. If you go into this thinking anything else, you’re wrong.

Readers should know:

Trigger warnings: SA, non-con, dub-con, sex trafficking, child abuse, murder, torture, prostitution, forced branding, somnophilia, grooming, forced medical procedures, PTSD, STIs
Primal, 🩸, 💨, bdsm, praise, degradation
This is heavy. It is a dark, dark book.
Sibby and her henchmen.
Chapters 33 & 34 are some of the most emotionally initiate, caring, heart-wrenching, beautiful scenes of recovery I’ve ever read. These alone are worth the pain of the book.
Zade is still a villain. Not morally grey. Villains can have good qualities. That doesn’t change that they are villains.
Hades and Persephone retelling

“His darkness devours my light, and I decide I’m content living in the shadows.”

Would I spend $12 or an audible credit on it (again)? Yes, but it’s not on audible. It’s on kindle unlimited. I would pay for it though.

Note: 🌶 - spiciness scale is from 0, fade to black, to 5, detailed, explicit, repetitive sexual scenes with non-traditional sex acts.

Content Warnings

psyched_np's review

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challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Content Warnings

anastashamarie's review

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challenging dark sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

3.75/5. I really struggled with a review and rating for this one. I feel like a high rating means that I recommend this book, which I can't necessarily say that I do. I didn't like most of it. However, it gripped me hard, and I flew through it. It tugged at my emotions with such complexity. So I do appreciate it for what it was, and this is what I settled on. But first...

⚠️ Please, for the love of God, heed the trigger warnings at the beginning of this book. The sexual violence, regular violence/torture, and emotional pain throughout this book are all incredible detailed and gruesome. This tips the needle toward vantablack on the darkness scale, and I think it could be damaging for a lot of people if they aren't properly prepared.⚠️

If the first book is a top-rated professional haunted attraction, this one was McKamey fucking Manor. 🏚️🕷️ Something that I, as a major horror fan, would get sucked into, but then wonder "wtf did I do that for?" Haunting Adeline (#1) was an intense, dark story but at its core, but it still felt safe. Uncomfortable at times, fairly violent, but still alluring and still controlled. Hunting (#2) most definitely is not like that. I've seen other reviewers call it unhinged, and that's a good descriptions. I would also describe it as disturbing, painful, and real-life scary.

"Part One" of this was especially difficult to read. The author said she was trying to acknowledge the genuine horror of human trafficking, and this definitely makes you feel all of the fear, sadness, and confusion that's appropriate if that was her goal. But honestly, I think it was a little too well-done which takes me to my biggest issues with this book.

😖 First, I felt like I had to emotionally dissociate so hard from the first half of the book that the second half just seemed flat and a little ridiculous to me. If you've ever been a part of any adrenaline-inducing event, traumatic or not, you know that the effects of the cortisol can only really affect you for so long. Eventually your nervous system levels out, and you just sort of go numb. Not that you don't care, but the feelings get blunted so that you can move instead of being stuck in crisis. Since this book is so long, I hit that numb point right around the time that Addie and Zade reunited. Though this definitely helped me to relate to Addie, it didn't make for the reading experience I had hoped for, especially with how enjoyable the first one was beginning to end.

🤨 Second, I can't help but put my therapist hat on here, and say that the "healing" part of Addie's journey did not seem realistic or healthy. I get it, this is a dark romance where he fell in love with her stalker, it's not supposed to be healthy. But if we are going to go for emotional realism for the terrible stuff Addie faced, let's go for emotional realism for the recovery as well. I wish there was more showing of the easing into normal life that she and Zade needed to do. I wish that there was more of a focus on Addie and Zade BOTH growing from this experience together and growing closer, not just that Addie changed. There was a lot of justifying how Zade was better/different than the people who kidnapped and abused Addie. Though I'm okay with the dark relationship that Zade and Addie had, it almost felt like the human trafficking plotline existed to show that that Zade "wasn't that bad" instead of him really examining how he could also be different/better.

(Also, please don't try to brute force yourself or your partner to just do things that feel scary or uncomfortable one of you is traumatized. It will do more harm than good.)

🌹 But then this book turns around in Part Two, after all the trauma, and gives me such interesting development for Addie. I'm a sucker for a training-to-literally-murder-your-demons empowerment arc. The humor comes back that I loved in the first book. The spicy scenes are still A+ work.

Idk man, this book put me through the wringer. Read it if you can handle it, I guess? But also maybe schedule time for self-care after the fact.

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xlaurareads's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

i really liked this one better than the first book although it was way darker and extremely hard to read for me for about the first half when it was about addie's time at the grooming house. had to lay the book away for some time when reading and i got so frustrated from time to time that i set myself a deadline as when not to continue reading if she isn't rescued within the next few chapters. it just felt so dragged but i also wouldn't have found it plausible if she spent less time there, idk. my heart also broke when she was recovering - for her but for zade, too. but i absolutely loved how we got to know him and his sensitive side more and more in this book. i also liked how the plot unfolded a lot though i think the resolution with the whole claire thingy was a bit abrupt. i liked how we were introduced to sibby a lot more but I'm a bit confused and disappointed that

she just disappeared with this weird dude and they couldn't find her anymore. i would've loved to know what happened to her because she really grew on me. sigh.

anyways, although the book was really hard to read for all the abuse, i enjoyed it a lot and think it was amazing how the author handled addie's recovery and made it clear that it's okay and even necessary to seek out for help and showed us a safe space for survivors. the ending was also kind of what i expected and i'm happy it didn't turn out different. ayy, almost forgot one of the most important things: the spice was amazing!! (but dark, too).
before starting to read this book, you definitely need to check the trigger warnings and proceed with caution. this one isn't an easy read and tackles a lot of triggering topics. if you're not in the mental state to read this book, please just let it be and stay safe.

Content Warnings