Lady Venom Takes A Mistress: A Gothic Lesbian Romance

This book was everything I could have hoped for! It’s a great addition to the Halloween Boys universe and Kat just does an amazing job. This was my first sapphic romance and given it was also a gothic romance it was just perfection in my opinion. It just does such an amazing job telling Poesys story and how much she fought to not be auctioned off to a man like her mother insisted. When Poesys tricks don’t work she runs for the only place she knows might be her saving grace even if Lady Venom has been nothing but a story told around town. Lady Venom might have some of the best lines and her banter with Poesy is so good, even when it’s wrapped up in a beauty and beast retelling. The secrets and the ghosts and the love story between these two is just so good. It shows that how wonderful love is when it’s with the person you are meant to be with. There is so much good spice and I loved how much they cared to take care of one another 😉 if you get my drift. Also I will just love a story that fights against the patriarch any day. Kat Blackthorne will always be a must read author for me.

Absolutely love this book. As a wlw reader craving a dark sapphic I was lucky to find such an amazing book. The author did an incredible job with the writing and I was hooked from start to finish. This is one of my favorite wlw books.

"Alabaster Baudelaire was slithering into my heart and soul, wrapping around my wrist and my ribs, and squeezing out anything that wasn’t of her. And I welcomed my glorious death." Yes, please. More writing like this all day, every day and I would be the happiest reader in the world. Smut- yup? Awesome plot that drives you to read the book again? Double yup. And then there are these quotes that smack your eyeballs and you end up highlighting them as to come back and adore them a few more times. “Is a sunflower more beautiful than a daisy? All flowers just bloom. Beauty does not compete; it simply flourishes." I mean- come on. I'm reading a paranormal smutty slithering bloody gruesome book and the writing ends up being poignant!?!? It's annoyingly great. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect paranormal foray. The steamy scenes are stupid hot... do not read this one around other humans as your face will give away the fact you are reading about a mamba in a particular chapter that is completely ssssalacious. You may find yourself wanting a wee green snake bracelet of your own, and the ending? Demons unite. I could not find one damn thing I didn't like about this book. I am not a man hater, but there ain't no way to like the men in these pages so I went with the gruesome deaths and laughed at Lady Venoms antics. Just read it- you won't regret it. The writing is phenom! "AND THEY LIVED DREADFULLY EVER AFTER."

But it just kind of fell a little flat for me. I've been looking for some Sapphic romances that aren't automatic, insta-love/lust. While I love the premise, I truly thought this book deserved full-length novel status. It needed another 150 to 200 pages to flesh out the plot, and really give these characters more depth. Some things really made no sense. It's historically set, yet there's a silicone snake d*ldo??? And they flip-flopped back and forth between speaking as if they're from the early 1900s and the 2020s. The ending twist in the epilogue was interesting, however. I give it a solid 3/5 🌟 Pros: Lady Venom Quick read (if that's your thing) Sapphic monster romance Sapphic Gothic romance Cons: Underdeveloped plot Too short Some inconsistencies

For such a quick read, this story hit me so hard. I obviously knew I was going to like the writing because, duh, it's Kat Blackthorne. But I was not expecting to be so wrapped up in how devoted Posey was to Alabaster and vice versa. I love that there is more and more sapphic romance being put out into the world, but they aren't all as good as this one. There were so many poignant quotes that dug into my soul that you would have thought this was a different genre. I loved the Gothic feel of the setting and the world building and by the time Ez came on the scene I was practically squealing with excitement at how this was tying in with the Thorneverse. And that dedication at the beginning felt like I was being called out. Add this one to the evidence of why Kat Blackthorne is one of those authors that "if they write it, I'm going to read it".