Trauma nurse Aly has a thing for masked men covered in what she hopes is fake blood, if her social media likes are any indicator. And it seems like one of them likes her back. 

Writing: 5/5
Story: 2/5
Darkness: 2/5
Spice: 5/5
Editing: 5/5

Triggering topics: Emergency room injuries (including suicide, domestic abuse), stalking, blood (fake and real), serial killer, dead bodies, murder, rapist on the loose.

Yes, Lights Out is a dark romance book about some pretty horrific subject matter—particularly what comes through the ICU on any given shift. But it’s also hilarious (intentionally), well-written, and tons of fun. Though it loses steam from the midway point onward, it was an easy to read page-turner that you can flash through in an afternoon or two.

Aly Cappellucci has been a little fucked up since a turbulent childhood and the death of her mom. Maybe that’s why she thrives as a perpetually single-ish trauma nurse. Josh Hammond is a faceless social media star and hacker who makes mask fetish content online. He also might be a genetic psychopath—he’s still trying to figure that out, though. 

Both characters are incredibly likeable, but dubiously sexy. They shoot punchline after punchline, making them both more of a chill bestie than a sexual fantasy. 

If there was a genre called “comedy dark romance,” Lights Out would be number one on the list. For better or for worse. It’s not as dark as some of the other pitch-black dark romance titles I’ve read and enjoyed, and my brainrotted self got a little bored at times because of it. It’s a safe dark romance, if there is such a thing. 

Aly and Josh are equal parts stalker and stalkee. Aly followed the Masked Man (Josh) online, and left some questionable comments. Josh found out who she was and broke into her house. Aly DNA tests pieces of him and plants a tracker in his car. Josh watches her through the camera at work in the hospital. Yes, morally-speaking, Josh is a cut above in the Illegal Things We Do For Love department. But they both give as good as they get. 

Most of the first chunk of the book is Josh growing smitten with Aly, and Aly trying to prove—not figure out, prove—who he is IRL. It’s less “cat and mouse” and more “Tom and Jerry”—they take turns getting the upper hand before it resets to zero by the next episode. It’s silly, completely consensual, and honestly pretty charming. 

However, I already know who Josh is and the consequences of Aly figuring it out are pretty tame. So there isn’t really any tension. It’s just cartoonish antics—from spelling “LOL” with a GPS tracker to “joint custody” jokes about the cat. Harmless. Fluffy.  

I wish there was a stronger B plot earlier on. Yes, Aly’s mom died in a car crash when she was sixteen. And yes, Josh’s father is a convicted serial killer. But so what? Where are my exuberant ups and downs? My rollercoaster of tensions and angst? Everything felt too easy, too streamlined. 

It wasn’t until halfway through the book that hints of an antagonist started to poke through. A conflict. And buckle up, because it’s a tried and true one: rapist targets Aly, MC collective disposes of rapist. Then, Aly employs her mafia-connected family members to help dispose of the corpse. I won’t get into too many details, because it’s fun to read the twists and turns for yourself, but that’s the gist of it. 

My biggest disappointment was that so much of the conflict felt so…predictable. The world Navessa Allen built had so much potential: a serial killer father, a feMC who works as a nurse in the trauma ward… And somehow we get the most generic Bad Guy profile I’ve ever seen. Serial rapist who decides to rape. 

We have a whole hospital to work with here. Tragic accidents, nurse rivalries, corrupt doctors, diseases, drugs—think: House, M.D. with more raw-dogging. But nooooo, we get Generic Rape Man Wants To Rape. I’m genuinely gutted. 

Like any good dark romance, the book has a second climax. (hehe) In order to cover up their crime, they need to make the body disappear, destroy all the evidence, clean up the crime scene, and—oh yeah—break into the dead guy’s mini mansion to erase all traces of Aly from his computer.

The break-in goes about as well as you would expect from an angsty crime drama: Thinking on their feet, buying time, running through a forest, narrowly avoiding hypothermia, setting off alarms, dodging the cops. It’s fast-paced, but pretty predictable. 

The last stretch of Light’s Out is a truly odd hosting dinner with the mafia side of the family. For a cast of characters who popped in unceremoniously at the last minute, they sure took up a bunch of my time and page space. I’m not really sure what the point was of introducing family dynamics into the book at the final hour. I assume setting up a sequel or spin-off. 

Lights Out started out good. Really good. But everything that made it unique and interesting—the hospital setting, Aly’s sparky coworkers, Josh’s fear of being a secret psychopath and his serial killer bloodline—got stripped away completely early on. Unfortunately, what filled in the gaps was pretty derivative of the dark romance genre as a whole. 

Lights Out had some bright potential, but midway through that light…went out. (Please don’t block me.)

Lights Out vibe quotes: 

“I was half tempted to send her a DM explaining myself, but how would that work? Hey, Aly, it’s me, the man who broke into your house. I was just watching you through the camera I hid in your room, and I wanted to let you know that you are correct. I am not, in fact, a serial killer. Jesus Christ.” – Chapter 4 

“It felt like my brain was splitting in half. On the one hand, this was the hottest thing that had ever happened to me. On the other, it was also the most fucked up.” – Chapter 5 

“I’d waded into darkness, and now I was swan-diving into the deep end. I was a sex-craved, sleep-deprived woman more interested in a kinky fuck than safety and comfort.” – Chapter 7

“I glanced down. Aly still had the knife, and she was using the tip of it to drag the hem of my shirt up. Oh, shit. Why was that so hot?” – Chapter 8

So what drove the masktokers to it? Was it the anonymity? The opportunity to don an alter-ego like a second skin and become someone else entirely? – Chapter 17 

Maybe I was always meant to be a killer, and it would have happened one way or another. – Chapter 17 

I feel like disposing of a body is a boyfriend-girlfriend activity and not something you do with a casual hookup. – Chapter 17

“I guess we’re at an impasse then. We’ll both do anything to keep each other safe, even if that means pissing the other one off.” – Chapter 24

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