Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 / 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Genre: Dark Fantasy Romance
Length: 543 pages
Format Read: Author-Provided eBook
Published: September 12, 2025
This book takes place in a fantasy world where humans, fae, and magical beings live together. It is not a very harmonious world, however. We meet the FMC Princess Anne as she is training to fight with her guards and fighting a tournament for her own choice of husband, much to the chagrin of her father, the king. She chooses to fight against one of the men in the guard and she wins the fight, but he also charms her in the process, so she chooses to marry him. Upon their wedding night, Anne is betrayed, violated, and murdered. Left to drown, she meets a demon that promises to bring her back and help her to achieve her revenge to the man who betrayed her and stole her throne. Anne meets other abused and slaved women and men on the ship, and gathers them into her crew, becoming the pirate Blackbeard.
The atmosphere of the book was one of the first things to draw me in. I am a big fan of Pirates of the Caribbean and the Peter Pan from 2003, so the gritty, fairy-tale-like atmosphere of the kingdom of Celestia captivated me thoroughly.
The characters are also enchanting. Anne’s crew is one that I would love to go on more adventures with. She has deep bonds with her whole crew and they clearly love each other as a wonderful found-family. The story has a satisfying slow-burn romance in it as well. When we meet the MMC Robb, he’s another charmer, but not in the sickly way that Anne’s husband was; he’s actually a heartwarming flirt. Reading Robb’s banter gave me heart-fluttering feelings and giggles.
It especially became clear that I was going to have a massive crush on this character when he cared for Anne so deeply and reacted so softly and let he have control when he learned about her trauma. The emotions that they had to go through together were well written. I could feel Anne’s inner conflict and her desire to run from her fears when the panic would grip her.
“His calloused fingers touch the bargains around my neck. ‘I’m no scholar, so I don’t know what these marks mean. But what I do know is that if you asked me to burn my ship to the waterline, I would. If you told me to wait, I would. If you drowned me in the sea, I’d bless the tide that brought me to your arms.’ His green eyes meet mine, steady and measured. ‘I would break every oath. Cross every ocean. Kill and steal and lie. Just to have a place at your side.’”
The pacing of the story is also excellent and the ending had me pacing and biting my nails. The action scenes are well done as well as the “spicy” scenes.
I recommend this for fans of dark fantasy romance stories similar to ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’, ‘Stardust’, ‘The Plated Prisoner’ series, and ‘Empire of the Vampire’.
LINKS TO THE BOOK
Amazon Affiliate link to ‘Bloody Black’ by Rhiannon Hargadon
Bookshop.org link to ‘Bloody Black’ by Rhiannon Hargadon
I have provided two links to the book above: one is through Amazon’s affiliate program (through which provides me a small commission) and the other is NOT an affiliate link through Bookshop.org.
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