When I was looking for my next book to read, I genuinely could not decide. My TBR is absolutely out of control, and every time I thought I’d settled on something, another title would start whispering, “Pick me instead.” So, I finally admitted defeat and sent my TBR list to ChatGPT, along with a little rundown of what I was in the mood for—vibes, tropes, general feelings—and it came back and told me to read the “Lady of Darkness” series.

Now, I’ve read books by Melissa K. Roehrich before and loved them, so the second I saw her name, my expectations shot way up. I went into this book with that delicious mix of excitement and pressure, like, “Okay, this better wreck me in the best way.” But I’ll be completely honest: I was struggling for the first half of the book.

I don’t want to put that fully on the book, because life has been a lot lately. My brain has felt like it has 47 tabs open, all buffering at once. When I did have downtime, I just couldn’t seem to really sink into the story the way I wanted to. I would pick it up, read a bit, and then drift off mentally—not because nothing was happening, but because I just didn’t have the bandwidth to meet the book where it deserved to be read. It just wasn’t holding my attention the way I expected, and that frustrated me.

I even considered DNFing it at one point, which, if you’ve been here for a while, you know is a big deal for me. I have a pretty firm stance on that: I paid for the book, the author put their whole heart and time and energy into it, and unless something is truly, wildly not for me, I feel like it deserves to be finished. I kept thinking about all the hours that went into crafting these characters and this world, and it didn’t feel right to walk away when I knew my head and heart weren’t fully in it yet.

So I pushed through. Slowly at first, a chapter here and there, and then something just…clicked. I am so incredibly glad I stuck with it. At some point, without me even realizing it, the story tightened its grip on me. The emotional beats started landing harder, the tension built in a way that had me leaning forward, and suddenly I was staying up way later than I should have just to get a few more pages in. That shift from “I’m not sure about this” to “I physically cannot put this down” was so satisfying.

There is so much to unpack with this series—emotionally, thematically, character-wise—and I absolutely do not want to accidentally spoil anything. Part of the magic for me was going in expecting one kind of story and slowly realizing it was becoming something deeper and more layered than I’d anticipated. I want you to have that same experience of discovery, of realizing you’re more invested than you meant to be.

So all I’m going to say is this: trust me. Give this book (and the series) a real chance—especially if you find yourself wobbling in those early chapters. Let yourself sit with it, come back to it, and see if it sneaks up on you the way it did on me. If your journey with it ends up anything like mine, you will not be disappointed.

BOOK 97 OF 2026📚

LADY OF DARKNESS #1: LADY OF DARKESS

BY: Melissa K. Roehrich

STAR RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

#2026readingchallenge #goodreads #readingwithrese #fable