I was wrong about Dark Romance | Ruinous Love Trilogy Review

** BEFORE YOU GRAB YOUR KINDLE: These books are not for everyone. They contain graphic violence, explicit sexual content, and other mature themes. Brynne Weaver thoughtfully includes content warnings for each book–I highly recommend reading them BEFORE you start.

** Spoiler Alert: Will there be spoilers? Probably a few. But how the heck do you write a meaningful review without talking about the book? I guess my GenX is showing its ass again, because… meh. Get over it. (And… I promise I’m not giving away everything.)

Confession: I avoided dark romance for years.

Not because I don’t enjoy morally gray characters. Not because I can’t handle blood.

But because my brain translated dark romance into horror.

I grew up in the era of Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees. My friends loved them. I did not. My own kids eventually got into Saw and The conjuring, and every single time I politely removed myself from the room.

Here’s the weird part… I am perfectly fine with blood, guts, and gore–as long as it’s real.
Documentaries?
Medical photography?
Historical atrocities?

Bring IT on!

Fictional horror? Absolutely not.

Yes, I know my brain is twisty.

So whenever someone recommended a dark romance, I mentally filed it under “Nope.”

Then one day, I stumbled across something Brynne Weaver posted on Threads. I picked up Butcher & blackbird without really paying attention to the genre label.

Then I reached the content warning page.

Instead of scaring me away… I cracked up laughing! And that was moment I realized I had completely misunderstood what this series was trying to do. The audiobook didn’t hurt either. It is absolutely phenomenal. From the very first chapters, I realized this wasn’t horror. It was one of the funniest romances I’d ever read.

Butcher & Blackbird
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I adore Sloane.

She’s dark and twisty, but not simply for shock value. Brynne Weaver gives you enough of her history that you understand why she became who she is, and somehow manages to make an unapologetic serial killer feel… relatable.

Her humor is impeccable.

Her competitive streak? Absolute perfection.

Then there’s Rowan.

Look, I never stood a chance. He’s Irish. He’s a chef. And apparently Brynne reached into my subconscious, found my type, and wrote him perfectly.

What surprised me most wasn’t the violence. It was how effortlessly funny the book it. The comedy never feels forced. It doesn’t read like someone inserted jokes into a thriller. It feels like two deeply broken people whose sense of humor became part of how they survived.

The exact moment I completely surrendered to this book?

When Rowan started stalking Sloan…
… with groceries.
… and recipes.

As someone that doesn’t cook, that may honestly be one of the most romantic gestures I’ve ever read.

The balance between murder, romance, comedy, and spice somehow works. It shouldn’t. On paper it sounds ridiculous. But, it is refreshingly human.

These aren’t polished, perfect romance protagonists.
They’re messy.
They’re damaged.
They meet each other exactly where they are instead of trying to “fix” one another.

I laughed more times than I can count.

“I didn’t gouge them out, Butcher. I plucked them. Delicately. Like a lady.”

and

“You’re the worst.”
“You’ll love me someday.”

and yes…

The ice cream scene. Oddly enough, it has not deterred me in my own consumption. (Not sure what that says about me.

My favorite quote, though, is the one that quietly explains the entire relationship:

“You were never unlovable.
You were just waiting for someone who will love you for who you are,
not for who they want you to be.
I can do that, if you’ll let me.”

Five stars. Zero hesitation.

From the very first chapters, I realized this wasn’t horror. It was one of the funniest romances I’d ever read.

Leather & Lark
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This seems to be the most divisive book in the trilogy.

Ironically…

It might actually be my favorite.

Lark hit me differently. She’s complicated. She hides parts of herself so well that the people around her continually misunderstand who she really it–and she allows it because keeping that darkness tucked away feels safer than being known.

That felt… familiar.

Then there’s Lachlan.

Whew.

This man.

I have no coherent literary analysis here.

Just…

Save that fucking dog!

If you’ve read it, you know.
If you haven’t yet… you will.

I was skeptical about the fake marriage trope because it often leans cheesy. This one started down that road just enough to make me nervous before swerving into something uniquely its own.

Favorite moments?

Multiple Deleters.

Lark poisoning Leander.

I laughed so hard.

Ironically, what I didn’t fully appreciate while reading was just how much world-building Brynne Weaver was quietly doing beneath the surface. It wasn’t until I finished the third book that everything clicked into place. I literally stopped and said:

Oh holy shit.
Brynne Weaver… you are fucking brilliant!

Scythe & Sparrow
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Going into this one, I was’t desperate for Fionn and Rose’s story.

They simply hadn’t occupied enough space in the first two books for me to feel like I needed it.

I was wrong.

Completely wrong.

Rose surprised me in ways I wasn’t expecting.

I appreciated that her Romani culture wasn’t reduced to a gimmick or turned into a stereotype. It simply existed as part of who she is.

Did I love Rose? Yes.
Did I fall head-over-heels for her the way I did Lark? Not quite.

Fionn, on the other hand… That poor man. I wanted to wrap him in the biggest hug imaginable. And maybe… crawl into his bed.

Purely for emotional support, of course!

This is easily the most emotional book in the trilogy. Rose in the hospital absolutely wrecked me. Followed closely by Fionn’s letters…
Good Lord.

“I love you. I’m not letting you go. I never will.”

Done. I was crying. The messy kind of crying.

And then there was Barbara. Every single Barbara scene deserves its own standing ovation.

But what truly elevated this book wasn’t just the romance. It was the realization that all three brothers had been living through the same timeline. Each novel wasn’t simply another romance in the same universe. They were overlapping lives.

Separate stories.
Shared moments.

Pieces of a much larger puzzle that only becomes complete when Fionn and Rose finally come home.

That realization hit me like a freight train. It is one of the smartest structural decisions I’ve read in contemporary romance in a very long time.

Five-plus stars!

Brynne Weaver… you are fucking brilliant!

Final Thoughts

If you asked me a year ago whether I’d enjoy dark romance, I would have laughed.

Now?

I’m the person recommending this trilogy almost weekly to readers who tell me they “don’t read dark romance.”

Because honestly… neither did I.

Brynne Weaver didn’t simply convince me to read a new genre. She changed what I thought the genre was capable of. She proved that humor doesn’t diminish darkness–it often makes it more bearable. That broken characters don’t need to become different people to deserve love. That sometimes the best love stories aren’t about changing someone at all–they’re about finally being seen.

And perhaps most importantly–as a fellow author–she reminded me that there isn’t only one “correct” way to tell a story.

The overlapping timelines, the long game she played with the brothers’ narratives, and the confidence to write the books exactly the way she wanted gave me something unexpected.

Not inspiration, not really.

Permission.

Reading as a reader, I loved these books. Reading as an author, I found myself constantly studying them. Not to imitate Brynne Weaver’s voice–it couldn’t be further from mine–but to understand how she trusted her readers enough to play the long game.

Permission to trust the structure I’d already envisioned for The Echo Effect, even if it doesn’t look like the traditional romance blueprint.

That’s a gift few books ever give another writer.

So if you’ve been avoiding dark romance because your brain–like mine–immediately pictures horror movies…

Start here.
Especially if you think dark romance isn’t for you.

You might discover, as I did, that what you’ve been avoiding isn’t horror at all. It’s simply another way to tell a love story.

What’s one genre you swore you’d never read… until one book changed your mind? Tell me in the comments.

** About the Author:
AmberLee Fuller writes emotionally messy love stories about broken people finding their way home. She’s also an internationally published photographer, branding strategist, and firm believer that the best conversations happen over coffee, road trips, and really good books. Her debut novel, Anatomy of Release, is the first book in The Echo Effect. She lives in Oklahoma with her rescue pit bull, Sir Charles the Brave.