Cover of The Dark Lord’s Guide to Honeymooning (and Other Acts of Tyranny)

Guides to Villainy and Love, Book 2

The Dark Lord’s Guide to Honeymooning (and Other Acts of Tyranny)

Kazimir and Arabella embark on a honeymoon where the only thing more dangerous than their enemies are their growing feelings for each other in this deliciously wicked and riotously funny second book in the Guides to Villainy and Love romantasy series that’s Assistant to the Villain meets Dreadful.

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Step Four: Take her on a honeymoon.
Step Five: Learn to co-villain effectively.
Step Six: Try not to get possessed by ancient evil.

Now bound by marriage and the formidable power of the Heirloom, Dark Lord Kazimir Blackrose and his Dark Lady Arabella are the realm’s most feared and chaotic power couple. And after years of scheming, Kazimir is poised to conquer Solandris. But when the Alchemist calls in a debt, Kaz is forced to postpone his reign of terror or face consequences even he can’t escape.

Arabella declares it the perfect opportunity for the honeymoon she was never promised. But their villainous getaway soon devolves into mayhem involving mass kidnappings, uncomfortable truths about Kazimir’s demonic past, and a talented pastry chef with heroic blood who won’t stop baking scones.

As if that weren’t enough, Kazimir’s mind is also filling with whispers not his own, while Arabella secretly tries to recover her stolen memories. But the greatest threat may be those three dangerous little words that could shatter their carefully constructed walls…and unleash an evil that destroys them all.

This sexy and side-splittingly funny fantasy romance is perfect for readers who love: villains who stay deliciously wicked (but are catastrophically in love); a powerful heroine carving out her place in the world; touch them and die; plotting world domination; sizzling spice and wickedly amusing banter; dark humor; found family of villains; and a honeymoon phase with assassination attempts.

Content warnings — click to expand

Mass Kidnappings, plus one attempt on the heroine that goes badly for the kidnappers

Ritual blood sacrifice and blood magic, a volunteer drive for "willing" blood donors, and ritual cuts for spellwork

Child abuse and emotional abuse, mostly in flashbacks: a boy strapped to an altar so his mother can carve his bones, a child raised as a weapon, a girl locked in a tower

Death of a parent (a mother's murder, remembered and grieved, not shown)

Sexual violence, mostly in backstory and never shown: a conception by assault, a seventeen-year-old sold to a demon with the rest left to implication, and one implied threat from alley muggers that gets interrupted

Trauma flashbacks and panic responses on the page, including one in the middle of a fight

Blood, gore, and decapitations (one demon, who will be fine once someone summons it again; three assassins who interrupt dinner, who will not)

Dismemberment, including a rotting arm on the bed

Murder (casual, frequent, and now at scale, with bound guards executed)

Torture and cruelty, on the page, via a beating, an interrogation, and other threats

Choking, both consensual and very much not

Poisoning, addiction, and heavy drinking

Animal harm: one mutant boar dispatched in self-defense, one rooster eaten by a dragon (off page, complaint lodged), and the dragon herself briefly trapped in a cage (she gets out and is not pleased)

Explicit sex and sexual situations, with a background orgy, vampire bites, and a naked minotaur

Birth control and a permanent magical sterilization, discussed with relief by two people who agree they would be terrible parents

Dubious consent themes (magical): an aphrodisiac wine that makes everything "too much", compulsion magic attempted on a spouse, and later a magical sleep cast on a spouse without asking

Mind control and possession, including memory tampering, compelled violence, a voice in someone's head with terrible advice, and a hijacker who narrates its host's sex life and gets handsy with a body it does not own (nothing explicit, and the manners are appalling)

Body horror: See: Child abuse, above, plus a twenty-foot skeleton assembled from many smaller donors, reanimated corpses cross-examined about a spy, and a spa with venom facials (fatality rate under ten percent) and a weekly face-dissolving acid peel

Cornhole, but with pickled organs

Tropes

  • banter
  • dark romcom
  • found family
  • marriage of (in)convenience
  • morally grey hero
  • powerful heroine
  • romantasy
  • touch her and die
  • touch him and die
  • villain romance

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