Savage Keepsakes by Marla York
Rating: 3.5/5
Spice: 5/5
Plot: 4/5
Primary Genre: Horror Romance
Trigger Warnings: See author website here
Favorite Quote: “We’re not incomplete individuals searching for our other halves. We’re complete entities seeking the wild souls that resonate with ours”
Blurb: I’m not a good man. Never cared to be one.
My existence is only darkness and death. The world thinks I shouldn’t be this way, but I am who I am.
Turning animals & humans into art is all I’ve ever known. Sending keepsakes of my victims ignites a fire within me, knowing I’m hurting families fuels my passion to continue.
I’ve never wanted to be anyone’s hero until Lucy.
Being in the shadows of her life could never be enough. The pure love that pours from her is something I couldn’t have prepared myself for.
She’s mine and always will be, even if she doesn’t know it yet.
The Good:
* I’ve never read a horror romance so this book was me dipping my toe in the water. I didn’t totally dislike it and if you like horror movies in the vein of Saw this will probably be great for you. While there’s tons of twisted stuff happening, there’s also tons of spice happening and some of that is twisted too. If you don’t think that’s something you can stomach, please check the author’s site for trigger warnings before picking this book up.
* There’s no happily ever after here but I don’t think a HEA would fit into this story. I absolutely loved the ending, it actually surprised me. I didn’t see it playing out in the way that it did but the ending wrapped everything up with a neat bow (and it’s probably made of human flesh).
* While the storyline is pretty demented, it couldn’t tear myself away from it. Maybe that says something about my personality.😅 Obviously the serial killer love story has been done before but this story felt completely original to me. It’s certainly unlike anything that I’ve read thus far and not in a bad way. I found it to be incredibly interesting. There’s also a ton of revenge in this book and if you’ve read previous reviews of mine, you know I love to see it.
* I think it’s absolutely bonkers that the author managed to have me liking the MMC Billy in this book. FMC Lucy, if not likable, is incredibly relatable. She deals with a lot of body image and self worth issues in this book. The characters are well written.
The Meh:
* I don’t know that I’ve ever said this about the book but I felt like some of the spice scenes could have been cut out. The storyline was so interesting to me (I watch too much Criminal Minds and Forensic Files) that I started to get annoyed with the smut towards the end of the book.
Bottom Line:
If you like a gory, smutty, serial killer love story, this is up your alley. It’s well written, fascinating, and marvelously demented.
If you purchase a book from a link on this page I may earn a small commission.
