Book Review: Skin of A Sinner

At Last! A dark romance I can get behind! Yes! Finally, BookTok has actually worked in my favour. This is an absolute rarity. But I genuinely enjoyed this book and I read it within two days - I couldn’t put it down. Is it a little unhinged - yes of course it’s “Dark” for a dang reason. Is there spice? Yes - not as much as you’d think as this book seems to lean more into the psychopathic dark side of the male lead and the effects of trauma than it does the smut.

I mean imagine waking up one day and having your childhood sweetheart and best friend (Roman) brutally murdering your abusive foster family? I don’t think anyone can imagine it, but that’s exactly what happens in the book's opening pages to Isabella. This book does have a lot to say about childhood trauma and the stigma of being an orphan. Suffice to say it is not the child’s fault - perhaps I’m still reeling from the phenomenal book ‘The Body Keeps The Score”, but I was seeing their trauma through a different lens. It was not just a tool to explain away their psychopathy - but it made them more human in my eyes, it added depth and made them morethree three-dimensional to me. What works in the books favour is the fact that we get too see into their past and why they are the way they are, as well as the depth of the trauma they went through. I would say many of the books I get through BookTok have characters that do not have enough meat on them. I will always try to do those characters justice, but this book was much better at rounding the characters and making them less like idiots. One of my least favourite tropes you get in romance novels is miscommunication. This sidelines all of that and the two leads actually communicate with each other which is delightfully refreshing and lessened the heartache and obstacles that Roman and Isabella go through. It also is vital to their collective healing.

I think there are some serious merits in terms of plot and structure. The escape from abusive familial relationships is hard to do. Especially as Isabella is being exploited. Although Roman is her escape, he essentially kidnaps her. But we can forgive this guy, right? It’s a romance novel and you end up rooting for the poor tortured and lonely soul who only wants Isa. I will also say I couldn’t find any plot holes - this is a well-rounded text and although the leading characters have been through the mill - they are fundamentally decent(ish) people to each other. The ‘darkness’ is a trauma response, but Roman and Isabella get their happy ending. My only critique is that the ending feels a little rushed and I wish there was more to the story not because I want the characters to face more hardships but because I didn’t want it to end!