Haunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton Final Review

***Spoilers as this book cannot be described without them****

Spice: 🔥🔥🔥

Triggers: R*p3, s*xual assault with a d3adly weapon, stalking, murder, dismemberment, cheating, bl🩸🩸d, fighting, smoking, alcohol, threats of violence, human trafficking, degradation, child violence/murder/sacrifice, graphic s3xual scenes, and a cliff hanger.

Synopsis: Adeline “Addie” Reilly moved to her grandparent’s home after their death. The only house that truly ever felt like home to her. Unbeknownst to her, she attracted the attention of a man. Zade Meadows is the man behind the vigilante group that is taking down human trafficking and he falls ass over elbows for Addie when he sees her at her book signing. He then proceeds to stalk her, break into her house, sexually assault her, murder people for touching her (or just being family to the one who touched her), and still manages to get her to fall in love with him.

All through the book, we have a subplot as well! Seems Addie’s great-grandmother, affectionately known as Gigi, also had a stalker. Whom she fell in love with. Sadly, it doesn’t have a happy ending, but Adeline, with the help of Gigi’s diaries, Daya, and Mark (one of the men Zade kills with Sibby in Satan’s Affair) and his wife, Claire, finds who killed Gigi.  It was actually Mark’s dad! He was Gigi’s husband’s best friend and he was obsessed with Gigi!

We also get see Satan’s Affair through Zade’s perspective, so we get ALL the spicy details on why he was late to meet Sibby! We end the book with Addie going out to find Daya (her best friend) after a frantic text asking she come and Zade, well, we don’t know if he is alive after an explosion goes off while he is trying to take down a large cult that traffics and murders children.

Final thoughts from Jess:

- I knew there would be a cliffhanger and I still raged!

- I wanted more ghosts.

- I love HD Carlton’s ability to be descriptive but if I ever see the word “weeping” used in that context again I’ll scream.

- The complex character development was wonderful, and the back and forth Addie had was refreshingly realistic.

Final thoughts from Deidra:

- When she said cliffhanger, I thought normal cliffhanger. Nope. This cliffhanger was 🤯🤯🤯. I still have a hangover from it and I am actively reading the second book!

- She teased us with the ghost. They were almost an afterthought opposed to a plot forwarding device. Kind of wish she would have left them out, but then again, it would take some of the gothic charm from the story.

- The primary and secondary characters were well written. It is great to see actual flaws that are flaws and not just quirky traits that actually help/benefit the character in some way.

Have you read this? If so, tell us your thoughts. If you haven’t, is it now going on your TBR?

If you have a book you want us to review, let us know either in a comment or message! (If you are an author who wants us to review a book or two, please message us!)

This book, and the others in this series, are available on Kindle Unlimited.