So excited to do our book review of the smoking hot (both in popularity and in spice) dark romance book – Butcher & Blackbird by Brynne Weaver.
This post is the Slowprose book review of the dark romance Butcher & Blackbird by Brynne Weaver.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links which, if purchased from, may result in a small commission, at no cost to the buyer.
Slowprose Review Format
Generally speaking, we don’t think of ourselves as “serious” reviewers, so our format may be a little different. Here is what to expect when you are reading Slowprose book reviews:
- Cover Review – doing the cliche of judging a book by its cover.
- Book Blurb – we share the book jacket or Goodreads blurb about the plot.
- Intrusive Thoughts – these are the general thoughts and feelings we have about the book while reading it.
- Book review – our overall review and star ranking of the book
- Book aesthetics – this is how gorgeous we thought the pages of the book were, or how easy/hard it was to read, or how good the narrator was if it is an audio book.
- Book recommendations – we talk about the author’s other books or other books that remind us of this book in some form or fashion. Basically, this is our catch-all to talk about anything else in the entire world that we want to.
If this is your first time reading a Slowprose review and you want to see our full review system, including our method of assigning and weighting stars, go here.
COVER REVIEW – BUTCHER & BLACKBIRD
This cover gets 2 stars.
It’s not as bad as if it had two swoony hallmark characters, but this being a cover of a dark romance book – it could have been so much better!
We do like the color scheme on it because it easily connects it to the darker themes of this book. But the design is not great. Too much stuff is going on, too many random floating things. If we hadn’t heard all the hype about this book, we definitely would have walked by this cover without a second glance at the library or bookstore.
BOOK BLURB – Butcher & Blackbird
Given our constant battle and extreme irrational fear of ever being a spoiler for any reader, because that is the last thing we want, we will just share the book insert or book blurb found on Goodreads to provide the information in terms of the plot:
Dark Romance – Butcher & Blackbird:
Every serial killer needs a friend.
Every game must have a winner.
When a chance encounter sparks an unlikely bond between rival murderers Sloane and Rowan, the two find something elusive—the friendship of like-minded, ruthless people with a pitch-black soul. From small town West Virginia to upscale California, from New York to downtown Boston to rural Texas, the two hunters collide in an annual game of blood and suffering, one that pits them against the most dangerous monsters in the country. But as their friendship develops into something more each year anniversary, the dark secrets and restless ghosts left in their wake are only a few steps behind, ready to claim more than just their newfound true love. Can Rowan and Sloane dig themselves out of a game of graves? Or have they finally met their match?
Butcher & Blackbird is the first book in the Ruinous Love Dark Romance trilogy of interconnected stand-alone dark romantic comedies. This dual POV novel ends on a HEA.
CONTENT WARNINGS ***Butcher & Blackbird is a DARK ROMANCE intended for an adult audience, this is not fairy tales designed for a young audience. This isn’t a reverse harem romance and there are no issues involving dubious consent, arranged marriage or darker sexual themes- but there is graphic violence and graphic mature content – please see Brynne’s website for a comprehensive list of trigger warnings***
INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS – Butcher & Blackbird
OMG GROSS GROSS GROSS NOT SURE I CAN CONTINUE
Ok, gross part is over and this is intriguing.
Ohhhh I get it! Love it!
This narration is incredible.
NOT THE COOKIES AND CREAM ICE CREAM
Holy sh*t this is so hawt!
THIS NARRATION!!!! YES!
Please don’t make her whiny, please don’t make her whiny, please don’t make her whiny.
Please don’t make this a regular romance. Keep the serial killer aspect!
Ok, back to a little bit of drama and serial killering. That’s good. Not as good as the first 3/4 of the book, but good.
Whomp Whomp. Ok ending. A bit of a trope. But ok.
BOOK REVIEW – BUTCHER & BLACKBIRD
Slowprose Star Rating – 4.5 Stars
We LOVED the first 3/4 of this book. It was a blistering 5 star up to that point.
The very very beginning almost had us stop the book right out of the gate because it is very disgusting. We don’t do great with body horror stuff. But if you push through that part, the story picks up. Just FYI because we almost stopped it right away.
We really loved the meeting of Sloane and Rowan and the interaction with them. The ongoing and growing friendship with their unorthodox competition was really enjoyable and surprisingly relatable (considering their hobby). We liked how the book focused on that and didn’t go too much into detail about their separate lives during the year between the competitions. The book balanced that perfectly, giving enough detail to round out the characters a bit and move the story forward, but keeping the focus on the two of them and their hobby/competition.
Absolutely LOVED the parts of the book involving the yearly competition and how those all went down. It was interesting to consider their moral compass in how they pick their targets. These parts of the book were so intense, interesting and scary and gross (Thorston [Thurston?] was the worst. UGH!) while still being, surprisingly, very funny at times! We literally laughed out loud on a few occasions. Man Guy!
This isn’t a forbidden romance, or reverse harem romance kind of story, but one of slow growing interest between two people whose violent acts are part of their normal life, and is the very thing that draws them together. The building sexual tension between the two of them was done really well and the initial spicy scene was 5 alarm fire. Soooo hot, especially the audio version with Rowan.
Where the book faltered was after that. The focus shifted to primarily the romance and the thoughts/insecurities of the two of them. It became just another cheesy romance book at that point, and unfortunately drifted away from the part of the book that we enjoyed so much. The banter and interaction between Rowan and Sloane at the annual competitions was what made the book so strong for us. Sloane was a bad ass and we loved that about her, but she became more whiny and just, idk, *lesser* after they got together. The book lost the dark themes aspect of dark romance and just became run of the mill.
It tried to recover with the twist at the end, which was just ok. It pulled it back up a bit, but didn’t get it back to where it was for us.
Overall, we really enjoyed this book (ESPECIALLY the audio version) and would recommend it!
Slowprose Star Rating – 4.5 Stars
BOOK AESTHETICS
We listened to the audio version of Butcher & Blackbird via Audible
We give the audio version of this book was the most beautiful thing and we give it ALL THE STARS.
The narration of the love interest between Rowan and Sloane is absolutely incredible and heightens the experience and rating of this book. It is more like listening to a play rather than reading a book.
Highly highly recommend the audiobook version of this dark romance.
Programming Note for Slowprose reviews on audiobooks!
Typically we have two books going at once – one audio and one physical.
Most of the time, when we listen to an audiobook we don’t have a physical copy of the book to take real life pictures of. We love to feature pictures of the book because, well, we are nerdy like that. We love book pics! So, we figured that reviews of audio books would be a great opportunity to feature other content creators and their incredible book pictures!
In this post you have seen the incredible pictures from Rebecca at Cozy with my kindle and Tatianna at Tatianna reads featured. Please do go visit their feeds and support fellow book nerds and creators!
We are super excited for this concept, and will continue to use this format with all audiobook reviews!
BOOK RECOMMENDATION
We were intrigued by the statement that Butcher & Blackbird is the first book of a trilogy in the dark romance genre – but not of these two main characters. It says it will be a dark romance series trilogy of interconnected stand-alone dark romance novels.
We did a little hunting (pun absolutely intended) and found out some information! The next two books involve characters that were introduced in book 1.
Leather and Lark a story around Sloane’s boyfriend’s older brother Lachlan and Sloane’s friend Lark. Set for release on June 4, 2024.
Scythe & Sparrow is a story around Rowan’s other brother Fionn and a circus motorcycle performer named Rose. This expected publication date is January 1, 2025.
You can see all these and more in our storefront, Slowestuff Books From The Blog storefront.
If you are looking for more book posts, check out the Slowprose section of the blog where we have book reviews, books lists including some posts about Stephen King books and Sarah J. Maas books, among others.
We hope you have enjoyed this book review of the dark romance Butcher & Blackbird by Brynne Weaver. Please tell us in the comments what you thought of Butcher & Blackbird! What are some of the best dark romance books you have read?
Happy reading!
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