The Curvy Bookworm

Author: Leigh Rivers
Series: The Edge of Darkness Trilogy, Book One
Genre: Dark romance and romantic suspense
My rating: ★★★★½
Spice level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

I could not put this book down.

I have never been the biggest fan of stories that constantly switch between the past and present. Usually, just as I become invested in one timeline, the book pulls me into another and leaves me impatiently waiting to return.

Insatiable was completely different.

I devoured every section, regardless of which point in the story I was reading. The past and present chapters worked together to gradually reveal what had happened between Kade and Stacey, why their relationship had fallen apart and how much pain had been left unresolved.

There was clearly a great deal of thought behind the structure of this book, and it showed.

A quick content warning

Insatiable is a very dark romance containing explicit sexual content, obsession, stalking, violence, abuse, trauma and other potentially distressing themes.

This is not a light or healthy romance, and the characters are dealing with serious emotional and psychological damage.

I would strongly recommend checking the author’s complete content warnings before reading.

What is Insatiable about?

Kade Mitchell is obsessed with Stacey Rhodes, the woman he once loved and now believes destroyed him.

They share a complicated and painful history, but years of separation have done nothing to weaken Kade’s fixation on her. He has continued watching Stacey from a distance, even while convincing himself that he despises her.

When he returns, the attraction between them is still impossible to ignore.

However, both characters are carrying secrets, trauma and completely different understandings of what happened between them. As the story moves between their past and present, the truth behind their separation gradually begins to emerge.

The past and present timelines

The shifting timeline was one of my favourite parts of the book, which genuinely surprised me.

Rather than feeling like an interruption, the flashbacks added another piece to the puzzle each time. They showed how Kade and Stacey’s relationship began, how intensely they once felt about each other and how everything eventually went so badly wrong.

The present-day chapters then carried the weight of that history.

You understand that there is still love and attraction between them, but it is buried beneath anger, resentment, grief and years of believing the worst about one another.

Every section gave me another reason to keep reading because I needed to understand what had happened and how they had reached this point.

A story with plenty going on

There is a lot packed into this book.

It has romance, obsession, danger, secrets, trauma, violence and enough mystery to make you question what each character truly knows.

The story never felt as though the darker elements had been added purely for shock value. There was a sense that the characters’ pasts, decisions and relationships had all been carefully connected.

Even when I did not agree with what they were doing, I wanted to understand why they were doing it.

The plot also gave the romance more substance. This was not simply a series of spicy scenes loosely connected by a story. There was an actual mystery developing around the characters, with unanswered questions that kept pushing everything forward.

The spice level

There is a decent amount of smut in Insatiable.

The attraction between Kade and Stacey is intense, messy and closely connected to their complicated emotional history. Their relationship is far from gentle, and the sexual content reflects the possessive and obsessive nature of Kade’s character.

The scenes are explicit, but they did not feel like the only reason for the book to exist.

There was enough plot, tension and emotional conflict around them to keep me invested in the characters as well as the spice.

My problem with the lack of communication

My biggest frustration was the lack of communication.

Most of the problems between Kade and Stacey could have been resolved, or at least significantly reduced, if somebody had simply explained what had actually happened.

Instead, important truths are left unsaid for years.

Both characters make assumptions, believe incomplete versions of events and allow anger to grow around information they do not fully understand.

I know that this misunderstanding is necessary for the story to work. If everyone had sat down, spoken honestly and compared notes, a large part of the plot would have disappeared.

However, miscommunication has never been one of my favourite tropes.

There were moments when I wanted to put the book down, gather the characters in one room and force them to have a proper conversation.

When years of pain could potentially have been avoided by somebody finishing a sentence, it becomes difficult not to feel slightly frustrated.

Why it still worked for me

Despite that frustration, the lack of communication did not stop me from being completely absorbed by the story.

The writing kept me interested, the timelines were handled well and the gradual reveals made me want to keep searching for the full truth.

Kade and Stacey are both deeply flawed, but their history made their connection believable. Even when they were angry with each other, it was obvious that neither of them had ever truly moved on.

Their relationship is not healthy or straightforward, but it is compelling.

This is the sort of book where you know the characters should probably stay far away from one another, yet you still keep reading to see what happens when they inevitably do the exact opposite.

That final chapter

Then came the final chapter.

I already knew this was the first book in a trilogy, but that did not make the cliffhanger any less painful.

Just as the story reveals enough to make you think you are beginning to understand everything, the ending introduces another development and leaves you needing answers immediately.

I am not generally a fan of cliffhangers, particularly when they feel as though a book has simply stopped halfway through the story.

However, this one succeeded in doing exactly what it was designed to do.

The miscommunication may have irritated me, but the ending made sure there was absolutely no chance I would stop after the first book.

I needed the second one straight away.

My final verdict

Insatiable was dark, addictive, emotional and much more carefully constructed than I initially expected.

The movement between the past and present, something I would normally find frustrating, became one of the strongest parts of the book. Each timeline added context to Kade and Stacey’s relationship and made their present-day anger and obsession feel more significant.

The lack of communication did annoy me, particularly because so much suffering could have been avoided if the truth had been shared years earlier. However, I also understand that the misunderstanding is central to the story.

It was not enough to stop me from enjoying the book, and it certainly was not enough to stop me from immediately wanting the next instalment.

My verdict: An addictive and carefully constructed dark romance filled with obsession, secrets, spice and a cliffhanger that makes the second book impossible to resist.