Tears of Tess (Monsters in the Dark #1) by Pepper Winters

“You may not be mine but I'm fast becoming yours”

I’ve been on a Pepper Winters dark reads reread lately and I am absolutely loving it.

Tears of Tess was the first book of Pepper Winters I ever read. I first heard all about Q from my best friend who happens to share my love of reading. We were having a girls book weekend away and she told me about the book she was reading and how the male lead character was, even for her, crossing lines. I cannot stress enough how much this shocked me, because my best friend does not shock easily—she doesn’t need a trigger warning and I’ve not known her to even wince at the contents of a book before. She has impeccable taste and I’ve got many, many recommendations from here and loved every single one of them so I trust her judgement.

Naturally I had to read this book.

Before I read Tears of Tess that first time, I hadn’t read true, soul battering dark romance before. Sure there had been some dark elements to previous stories, but it wasn’t dark.

Tears of Tess is dark and started a long love of dark, erotic fiction for me. I’ve since gone on to read all of Pepper’s dark romances and even found a fictional man who is joint with my top book male of all time within her words—no one was more shocked than I was when that happened, believe me. If you know me, you’ll know my love of a certain sadistic priest has never wavered and no one has ever come close.

One of the things I loved about this story is how we see the journey and shift in Tess. She starts off so gentle and meek. She craves other things but she’s not at first meeting, someone who seems strong enough to get what she wants.

Then her whole world changes.

She’s robbed of everything she knows, violated in many horrific ways and then, if it’s even possible, the worst thing happens.

She’s sold.

When we first meet Q, of course we bristle and want him to die. Naturally we don’t want anything good to come of him being in Tess’s world. But we soon realise he’s not exactly what we think he is. Yes he’s dark, yes he’s dangerous, and there is no question that he's a sadist. But that’s one part of him. As the story progresses we learn more about him and I think we fall for him as Tess does.

When I first read it, and now on this reread, I want more. Thankfully, this is not where we leave Tess and Maître Q.

 

•Needless to say, if you’re unsure if dark is for you, then please do your research and read the trigger warnings for this book. 

It’s not light. It’s not fluffy. Please read responsibly.

You can find trigger warnings on Pepper's website.