The King in Red - Ava Hall

 

Eldritch Horrors are more my fated mate’s cup of tea, but I can never resist a monster, I welcome them in all shapes, sizes and sanity loss percentages. “The King in Red”, very heavily influenced by “The King in Yellow” by Robert W. Chambers, follows Jade, an introverted, studious and incredibly lonely twenty something college student as she discovers a discarded play in the student library, researches it, finds out it’s pretty much cursed and somehow killed a few people so reads it anyway. In her dreams, she meets “The King” and feels a connection. This continues for a week, with nightly self pleasure sessions after every meeting, she quickly becomes obsessed with this man from her dreams, despite the fact she’s never seen his face. 

While the “curse” usually takes a week to kill off lesser mortals, Jade is still alive and kicking after the time frame, despite being entranced by those red lights she sees everywhere, but after falling asleep she is pulled into The King's world. 

So, we have a kidnapped but kinda sorta willing fmc, a tentacled, faceless softy of a mmc, forced proximity, only one bed, us against the world vibes but with a side helping of the deaths of the innocents and an enthralling play. Throw in some Beauty and the Beast-esque building of trust and relationship and you get the jist of the story, I just thank the gods we don’t have a sassy candlestick as well. 

It speaks to my soul as a fellow petty person that the first time they screw it’s out of spite, but despite the tentacles and all the many many uses that those beauties have, it was just ok. It fit with the story, with the progression of their relationship, but the passion wasn’t really there, the words of love were, eventually, but actions speak louder than words and all I heard were mumbles. Sure The King said all the right things and made Jade come several times, but it felt a bit hollow, I shall comfort myself with thoughts of it being so much better off page, they deserve it. 

One issue I had with the book was the lack of characterisation for The King. Here we have this eons old being, who except from being obsessed with his gal, wracked with guilt over the curses effects and being a bit of a self sacrificer had nothing really going on. Jade gets so much, we really get to know her, while The King, instead of being mysterious, an enigma, is reduced to a meat puppet whose only purpose is to serve. I prefer a bit more personality from my play-things. 

It’s weird to say, but I liked that it wasn’t a happy story. While the couple do get their happily-ever-after, there is a sad undercurrent throughout the book that has lasted with me. I don’t know whether it is the sense of loneliness our characters share or the pure apathy that Jade had for life that really cemented the melancholy, but this isn’t a feel good tale despite all the tentacles. 

I would bother with “The King in Red”. Firstly because it made me want to read “The King in Yellow” again, and I quite enjoyed how the author treated it. It was also very different from most other romances. There were sexy moments, there were cosy moments but they were all pushed to the background while a black cloud surrounded the story, and Jade and The King still loved, they thrived, and lived despite all. There were no magical fixes, nothing was perfect, but everything was alright.