I normally don’t have trouble reading a more darker romance, but I still find it difficult to accept a woman falling in love with her rapist(s) and that this romance really happens then. I know the human mind works in strange ways, but I just don’t really like this trope, which influenced my reading experience too much with this book unfortunately. Did not finish.

I am happy that I read this story. While it is outside of my normal genre, I did enjoy the plot and the character development. The mythological parts were fun, but overall this book was an average read. It does run a bit slow and there is not much in the way of world building. I may give this author another chance with future books.

This is the first instalment in the Lethe Chronicles.

I want to preface this review by stating that dark fantasy romance lies outside of my usual reading preferences but, due to the mythological links with this one and my interest in the genre as a whole, I thought I would attempt to read it.

I sadly can't say I had fun with any of this book's contents. I did appreciate the mythological links, so props for those inclusions, but also, as other reviewers have stated, felt entirely blindsided by the contents, due to the lack of trigger warnings and with the excessive abuse that the female characters endure.

This one was very average unfortunately. I think that the premise and category was extremely daring so I expected more from the story than what I got!

I was really prepared to like this as thought it would be quite fast paced and naughty but it is so slow and doesn't really have a lot of world building early on, I got over a third the way through and still didn't know much about how the world worked or how they ended up there apart from women being possessions and burned in an unforgiving world where they heal and are severely punished for any rebellion. I didn't mind the tiers of possessions but it needed more context and explanation to be enjoyable, the characters were all over the place and I didn't really feel connected or immersed with any of them. I just found it too hard to finish it really.

Jo and Christopher wake up next to each other naked and with very little memories of the past. What will happen when they discover where they are and how is Adam connected to them? Fast-paced read with great world building, loads of drama, suspense and sizzling scenes. I really liked it.

But this is no paradise. And no one here is an angel.Waking naked under a blood-red moon on an endless bed of sand, Jo remembers nothing.When I started reading I couldn't put it down.Lexie Talionis is magnifysent and amazing writer.I cannot wait to read more of there books.Keep up the great work.You should definitely read this book.Can't wait for the next book ...more

This was a pretty good book, but there are a few things that bring it quite a bit down for me. It would have been nice to have a trigger warning for the SA content that the book contains.

A land of eternal youth. No death, disease, or decay. But this is no paradise. And no one here is an angel.
Atmospheric, haunting and superbly plotted. I still have goosebumps! Omg......... this book was amazing I flew threw the pages with Olympic speed I was hooked from the very first page.

I did not realise this was fantasy romance. So this is entirely on me for not reading the synopsis carefully enough. The story is ok and I was alright with the darker tone (although I really hate survivors of sexual assault falling in love with their abusers as a trope). I guess if you’ve signed up for dark fantasy romance, this will be right up your street. For me, it was a decently written book that I am just not in the target audience for. Take my review with a pinch of salt on those grounds.

DNF'd at 25%, The Content warnings were great and should definitely be heeded by all readers. The writing style was enjoyable and I'd be interested in other books by this author. But learned a couple of new triggers for me from the first portion of this book.

I would say I kinda enjoyed this hut it wasn’t all that, it was more of an OK book but the idea was so good! I wish it wiuld have been better executed!

TW: rape, abuse
1.5/5

I went into this book expecting reverse harem themes, aware of the trigger warnings, and hoping for an entertaining little story on the side to set up the reverse harem.

What I got was...well, it was pretty terrible.

Jo is one of the more annoying characters I have ever had the displeasure of reading. We are told multiple times that she is strong minded, determined, and bold. However, we are merely told this and what she actually is, is unbearably whiny and simple minded.

The two men that are supposed to be the harem part of this are dull. One is cruel and his whole story arc is sex will set him free or something. I don't know, it got old pretty quick. The other guy is written as more of the impulsive hero who is going to knock a lot of boots and make decisions without thinking them through first and is packing in the pants. Neither one are very interesting.

Even the sex scenes are fairly tame. For a book with self professed "extremely dark themes" everything was pretty dull. There were a couple shock moments as you explore the world but nothing memorable.

Overall, this was a waste of time. It promised a lot and delivered on very little.

As I'm sure all the other reviews have highlighted, this book was very graphic and heavy, but overall was one I was intrigued by and couldn't seem to put down. I'm not usually one to massively promote content warnings, but I do believe this one is necessary and so this book will not be for everyone, and that's absolutely okay.

This book started off interestingly enough. Two random people, one man and one woman, dumped onto a desolate world where at dawn they spend all day 'burning'. They spend all night running, trying to find shelter to avoid the burning. Eventually they come to a city and are allowed entry. I thought this had potential, but a second man turns up. Both men are in love with the woman. From this point on the story degenerates into a pissing contest between two 'alpha' males. I'm not interested in reading about a pissing contest between two men. I realised I had no interest in the characters when I couldn't differentiate between which one was Adam and which one was Christopher. One of them was good and one of them was bad, but to be honest they were both incredibly boring. One redeeming point for a 'reverse harem' story is that at least it wasn't about werewolves. Sorry Lexie, but I won't be reading the sequel.

So this book was... mm I don't know. I liked it, but it is doubtless controversial.
There is a warning at the beginning a that's nice but it should be more clear and state that there are explicit scenes of rape. I have no problem reading such scenes except for the disgust and anger that induce. But there are many people that would find it very distressing.
This is a horror fantasy everything happens in a hell like world where the men control everything and women are sold as sex slaves. The MC find herself in this world with two men she remember to know from her life before, but they can't remember more that their names and some feelings. While they try to save her from this future she have to save them as well. In a trip to figure out their feelings and remember the horrors from their past life. To learn and forgive, about themselves and their loved ones. So I will say is a story about learning and redemption and forgiveness.
I like the author note at the end of the book although I would have like to read  more some warning about how despite  how people can change you should stay away from the people who hurt you and not try to change them yourself. That I belive could help some confused readers, specially without a more extensive warning at the beginning, some people can read to the end in a delicate moment and get some confusing feelings. I think a bigger warning and a longer author note would be helpful for some people.

I’d like to thank NetGalley and the author for providing a copy of this book to me free in exchange for my honest review.

This book is very up front about its content, but in case you need further confirmation it is VERY graphic in all situations/descriptions and yes there is a full, on page, disturbing depiction of rape. But the story as a whole will make you step back and truly think. I can’t stop thinking about it even though I really wish I could.

I went into the book expecting a storyline/discussion on consent, lack of consent, and ultimately forgiveness and if it’s possible to move on from something like that. To some extent that was the case but at the same time it was nothing like I expected, so I’m going to put the full plot summary below and then review. THIS WILL BE A FULL SPOILER REVIEW.

I will post TW at the very bottom so if you’d like to see them without reading the full spoiler review scroll to the very bottom!

Ok, let’s do this.

**Plot Summary**
The book starts out with Jo as she wakes up laying naked in a barren wasteland with no idea where she is and no memory other than the name of the man laying beside her. Christopher, her companion, also knows her name but has little memory as well and a full distaste for everything about Jo. Every day when the sun rises their bodies burn and every night as the sun sets they regenerate into perfect forms of themselves again. Deciding to band together they run every night as far as they can toward the sunset to avoid the sun before repeating the cycle all over again.

Jo finds herself inexplicably drawn to and physically attracted to Christopher who seems to be entirely repulsed by her for reasons neither one of them fully understand. Thinking they are the only two humans wherever they are these feelings do boil over a few times, however Christopher always stops it swearing that what he wants to do to her will only hurt her and he refuses to do that. Slowly they begin to care for and protect one another and begin to tear down the walls of whatever memory it is causing the friction between them resulting in true affection. It’s at this point that they discover they are NOT alone and enter a city where they find they will be separated male and female. Christopher promises Jo he will find her and protect her and they part ways.

Fast forward a few months time and Jo has found herself in a school specifically geared toward grooming the women who find themselves…wherever they are. Drastically outnumbered by men, women are ranked into 5 tiers of ability and desirability and sold off to men accordingly; 1 going to single male ownership within a group of men known as Ancients, and 5 being rented out from man to man to do with as he sees fit and then put in the sun to be burned and then regenerated so it can happen all over again. Trying her hardest to make her way to a top tier position Jo is shocked when she meets her evaluator prior to ranking and it is Christopher. He promises her he will keep her safe and convinces her to rank tier 5…the only tier he is able to take himself. Accomplishing this he gives everything he has to buy her but as they prepare to leave together a man picking up the tier 1s sees Jo and the memories begin flooding back.

Adam feels like home. He brings Jo joy and overwhelming feelings of love, but beyond that she does not know who he is. He refuses to leave without her, and as a higher ranking male than Christopher he forces the paperwork to be reversed and takes her as a tier 1 instead. It doesn’t take long for them to end up behind closed doors (for fear of letting others know the truth about their connection) and pouring out their souls to one another, both feeling their love but neither understanding what they were to the other or how they ended up where they did. Worse yet Jo cannot figure out how she can love Adam so desperately but also need Christopher the way she does.

This is where things start to get twisted. Jo in an act of defiance steps out of line at a public event unintentionally inciting rebels who have been gathering strength to demand a change to their oppressive social rankings. Her punishment is a public flogging at the hands of Adam, however when he cannot follow through with it he and Christopher together turn the crowd against the judge and the Ancients presiding and a new director takes charge ushering in the changes the rebels have longed for. This allows tier 1 women to go to full public auction instead of being reserved for elites. Pooling together everything they have, Adam and Christopher take the top bid and co-ownership of Jo. Adam is unwilling to share her, however Jo truly loves Christopher and insists they all live together. As her feelings grow and spiral for both men it does eventually culminate in a polyamorous relationship between the 3 of them with Adam claiming Jo in the way he has always wanted to, and Christopher claiming Jo in the way he desired but in a way that is also pleasurable for her. Until Christopher is arrested and sentenced to a life sentence of being “resourced”.

Having already found out that the leather clothing, textiles, even drinks were derived from humans who were then thrown into the sun to burn and then be “resourced” again the next day, Jo takes matters into her own hands and having discovered she has the ability to stay awake while everyone else is forced into sleep during the day she launches a rescue mission. The only way to free Christopher is for her to cut his head and hands off in order to slide his body out of his shackles, put him in a sack, and carry him to escape/safety where they can reach the sun and he can regenerate again. Yes, you read that right.

Against all odds Jo makes it out with Christopher and after burning and reawakening they run for their lives back across the desert they survived at the beginning of the book. Finally admitting their true feelings and the depths of their love for each other they are shocked when Adam finds them. Having escaped the restraints Jo put him in to absolve him of involvement in her rescue mission, he is devastated that they would leave him but also unsure how to move forward. It’s at this point that with the sun all of their memories come surging back.

We get 3 points of view starting with Adam. He and Christopher are friends and business partners running an office together and Jo is an IT tech. We get a crash course in the attraction and brief relationship between Jo and Adam right up until he proposes at the company Christmas party…and she says no. We then move to Christopher’s POV first as a 5 year old child holding his mother’s hand as she dies by suicide, then as a young boy being “befriended” by another boy at his private boarding school who ends up repeatedly raping him, then as an adult who has used his resources to destroy the boy, now man, who hurt him and who has a seething hatred for Jo’s love of Adam and a desperation to ruin her. Then we finish with Jo’s POV, which fills in the blank behind the scenes that while she was preparing for the Christmas party Christopher did act on his impulses and raped her anally resulting in her turning down Adam’s proposal and breaking his heart.

But it doesn’t end there. As Jo returns to the office the following Monday she is the last to find out that upon leaving the Christmas party having drunk himself into oblivion, Adam hit another car head on and was killed on impact. Devastated and destroyed by her trauma and grief she takes a pair of scissors from Adam’s desk and murders Christopher with them before turning them on herself, which resulted in both of their deaths landing them where they were at the beginning of the book.

We have discovered at this point that the place they are is not hell but a kind of purgatory meant to purify souls. This is instrumental as they reawaken, full knowledge of their history together, and try to come to grips with it all. We end up with a powerful, powerful speech by Adam first to Jo then to Christopher. Then Christopher, mortified by his actions in light of everything he’s learned and grown to understand about love through their journey, ends up leaving briefly before returning to beg Jo’s forgiveness. Then Jo professing her love to Adam admits that in light of everything they’ve been through she cannot let Christopher go. She forgives him even though she admits she knows Adam may not ever be able to and as the sun rises they all fall asleep.

However when they open their eyes they are back at the Christmas party. Jo stares at Christopher knowing what he was about to do and Christopher breaks down knowing what his intentions were at that moment. Adam comes rushing in realizing they all returned before the events ever took place and now they would never take place, and he falls to his knee and proposes to Jo once again. She accepts and the story ends implying that the three of them decided to move in together with Adam realizing Jo came as a package deal with Christopher as they try to heal and move forward grasping everything they’ve learned.

**Review**
I am still trying to figure out what the heck I read and how I feel about it. It isn’t lost on me that as the reader you approach the story exactly as the characters do…minimal information, no context, only gathering context and knowledge as you go. So as I read about this steaming hot throuple in the throes of passion and I ship them hard, THEN come to find out what they are to each other I’m thoroughly disgusted at myself, feel physically ill thinking of said characters, and am ultimately mad at the author for writing exactly what the book warned me it was. Because in my head, as someone who suffered SA there is no forgiveness and no justification or excuse for someone who destroys another person in that manner. But then that’s where you realize that’s the entire point of the book. You didn’t know, the characters didn’t know…the truth couldn’t taint your view of getting to know and “fall in love” so to speak with Jo, Christopher, and Adam and their tiny slice of heaven in the middle of hell.

So when you did learn the truth did it HONESTLY change anything? All characters had grown, healed, and matured into damaged but better versions of themselves and we allowed ourselves to see that prior to the bomb being dropped. So did having the context of the past…knowing who they were before and the heinous act that fated them together…actually mean anything? And if it did what does it say about you as the reader to throw growth, healing, and redemption out the window because you suddenly realize what you knew wasn’t the entire truth? Does it make you close minded and unable to forgive? Or does it simply make you realistic and a human being? I just don’t have those answers. This book will definitely mess with your head. I’m just undecided if that’s a bad thing or not.

Overall the quality of writing is excellent. The author really crafted something deviously incredible and disgustingly dark but thought provoking. It’s controversial for sure, but a conversation starter. And maybe that’s something we’re too afraid to speak of but actually need to talk about more.

There are more books, but I’m going to gracefully bow out of the series for self preservation. Maybe I’ll revisit again in the future just to see how the author handles the characters moving forward from such a devastating history but that’s not going to be any time soon. For now the lingering questions are enough to last me a long time.

***TW: Violence, rape, sodomy, sexual assault, sexual violence, repeated loss of virginity, child abuse (sexual), suicide, murder/suicide, misogyny, objectification of women, slavery, sex trade, prostitution.

Jo and Christopher awake on a sea of endless glowing sand, with no clothes, resources, or memories of how they got there. Every time the sun rises, they burn in unspeakable agony . . . only to awake, completely unharmed, when the sun sets. As they traverse the sands, desperately seeking any form of shelter, tensions--sexual and otherwise--rise higher and higher.

And then they reach The City, and discover that things can always, ALWAYS, get worse.

Flames of Lethe ticks all the boxes of a traditional dark fantasy erotic romance (and the author explicitly describes it as such), so I was a little confused to see this shelved on Netgalley under horror rather than romance. After finishing it, I can say with complete confidence that this? This is both. This is dark. If you don't like dark romance, this is not for you. If you do, this is a really excellent addition to the genre.

Writing-wise, this shows a lot of talent--I was absorbed from start to finish. The characters burst off the page, the pacing was excellent, and the worldbuilding was devastating. Our characters wonder often if they are in Hell, and this is quite an interesting interpretation of such a place.

I enjoyed this a lot, but NOT EVERYBODY WILL, and I think it's important to be very up front about that in a review. If you hate romance with dubcon/noncon, then give this one a hard pass. The world Jo finds herself in is not exactly a feminist utopia, and some of the choices she makes by the end might rub certain readers the wrong way. But if you're a romance fan looking for something (very) dark and original, this is an excellent book to try out.

I received a free copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I thought this was very original but the way it handled rape and sexual assault was just not for me.

January 25, 2022

***please message the author for trigger warnings BEFORE reading****

Original, dark, hellish, discovery, forgiveness, steamy, bizarre, hope, hurt, pain, betrayal.