Clara’s Verdict
Dark romance as a genre has a reputation problem, and Lights Out is an interesting case study in why that reputation is not entirely deserved. Navessa Allen has written something that is genuinely funnier than its premise – trauma nurse with online masked-man obsession, morally grey stalker-turned-protector – has any right to be, and she has done so without defanging the darker elements that the genre’s readership specifically wants. The result is a book that manages to be both spicier and more characterful than most of its BookTok contemporaries, and one that works because the comedy is character-specific rather than situational relief.
I should be clear upfront: this is 18+ content, the content warning at the beginning of the book is genuine, and the stalker dynamic is central to the premise and is not critically examined within the text. Readers who find such dynamics actively distressing should not continue past the synopsis. But for those who have made peace with reading the genre on its own terms, this is one of the better-executed entries in the current wave of dark romance.
The BookTok origin of Lights Out’s readership is worth addressing directly, because it creates a particular kind of expectation problem. Books that achieve mass popularity through short-form video recommendations often disappoint readers who arrive with no context beyond ‘everyone loves this’ – the recommendation format strips away nuance and positions the book as a universal proposition rather than something with a specific ideal reader. This book has a specific ideal reader. But for that reader, the book delivers on its reputation more reliably than most of its contemporaries in the same wave.
About the Audiobook
Published by Quercus and released in August 2024, Lights Out is Book 1 of the Into Darkness trilogy – Caught Up (Book 2) is already available, and Game On (Book 3) is available for pre-order at time of writing. The setup involves Aly, a trauma nurse who follows an anonymous masked content creator online, and who sends a drunken text that turns her fantasy into something considerably more real. Josh, the masked creator with millions of followers, has been watching Aly specifically. The romance plot shifts register substantially in the second half when a genuinely sinister third party introduces actual threat into what has been, until that point, a largely consensual fantasy dynamic between two people who happen to share a dark imagination.
The tonal management across those two halves is the book’s technical achievement. The comedy and the darkness have to coexist, and Allen pulls this off by making the humour character-specific: Josh is funny because of who he is, not because the author inserts comic relief scenes. The transition to a more genuinely threatening second half works because the character dynamic is already established with enough solidity to absorb the shift without the story losing its identity.
The Narration
Elena Wolfe narrates across dual-POV material that shifts between Aly and Josh throughout the 13-hour-38-minute runtime. Wolfe handles both voices with reasonable differentiation, and her instincts for the tonal pivots – from banter to heat to genuine tension – are consistently good. Single-narrator dual-POV romance is a demanding performance format, and the consistency across the full runtime is notable. The lighter scenes have the right comic energy; the more charged passages are handled with appropriate intensity without tipping into melodrama.
What Readers Say
Across 83 Audible UK listeners at a 4.3 average, the reviews divide fairly clearly between those who came to dark romance with the genre’s conventions already accepted and those who were partially converted by this specific book. One reviewer who had been systematically unimpressed by stalker romance tropes wrote that this was the exception: « The chemistry sizzles, the humour lands, and despite the darker undertones it never lost its heart. » Another noted going in blind, having forgotten the recommendation context, and being surprised by how different the male lead is from the standard brooding bad boy – « Turned out that’s what makes this book so good. » The one 3-star review found the spice repetitive and the second-half tonal shift jarring, which is a legitimate critique of the structural problem inherent in grafting a thriller plot onto a fantasy romance setup. The 5-star reviews specifically praised Josh: « unhinged in the best way, fiercely possessive, morally grey and impossible not to love. »
Who Should Listen?
Dark romance readers who want the genre’s intensity alongside actual humour and a male lead with genuine character rather than pure menace. Not a starting point for readers new to dark romance – the content warnings are genuine and should be checked before committing. Start at Book 1 of the Into Darkness trilogy and commit to the series if the first instalment lands; Caught Up (Book 2) is already available, and the character relationships and tonal dynamics established here build meaningfully across the subsequent volumes. The trilogy format suits this material well – the threat established in the second half of this book has room to develop in ways a standalone would not accommodate.
