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A review by yas_sezer
Butcher & Blackbird by Brynne Weaver
4.5
i had a really good time with this story and these characters, and after sitting on my feelings for a few days, i can say that my hearts only grown fonder
sloane and rowan were great and hot. i loved them together but also individually. one thing about sloane that i have found myself continuously thinking of is her constantly putting in effort despite her fears and doubts. she kept trying and giving things a go, and giving rowan a chance. it’s not something i’ve seen in many books really, usually there’s a lot of self sabotage, so this was refreshing and honestly i’ve been actively trying to channel my inner sloane and do the same irl.
rowan is our golden retriever protective serial killer book boyfriend🫶🏼 i loved him, particularly from the first kill when he tore apart our secret room watching her masturbate man🥲 disgusting, but rowan killing him in an animalistic way and then exposing his vulnerability looking for sloane right after - that’s where i knew.
there was a decent amount of smut, but i liked that it didn’t really happen throughout the book but rather more at the end. i enjoyed the plot despite it having unrealistic aspects (where are the cops and detectives?!) and genuinely looked forward to the plot and characters developing. also the big time jumps helped me connect to the characters more and believe their feelings, especially considering it’s a relatively short book. i’m not a fan of insta love, so the time jumps helped solve that issue.
the writing felt like i was part of them, with their jokes and banter, with their fears, heartbreak, excitement. it was really immersive and i found myself giggling and “awww”ing, and “nooo”ing out loud many times. as always, every romance will have moments that make me cringe (with this one for some reason it was her repeatedly saying ‘you’re the worstttt’, not sure why), but for the most part everything else i looked past or ate up.
i also loved that we got to really know the characters and see them actually talking to each other. even if we didn’t SEE, it was alluded to enough that i believed they knew a lot about each other and actually had substance to their relationship. this is a huge thing for me in any book. i need to see the characters bonding and see their chemistry or im just not going to buy it. i bought it here tho yay
in terms of the gore, i don’t get affected easily so i didn’t feel genuinely sick with any part of this book, but if you’re squeamish i’d definitely tell you to check trigger warnings. there’s skin peeling and slurping and eye plucking (gouging as rowan would say, particularly the left eye). maybe because i’ve always read or watched thrillers and horrors, i am desensitised to most things. i will add though, sloane, our orb weaver, had a very interesting method of killing her victims with the web map and different markings. side note here to appreciate the loss of colour in her art coming back after rowan (‘: i actually had to close the book and immediately tell meva (my best friend), and mush about it. that was quite heartwarming.
NOW LET ME GET TO DAVID. you’re telling me we adopted this poor lobotomised man, gave him a job and saved his life just for him to be slurping up rowans skin? absolutely not. i really didn’t trust david from the start but when heaps of time went by and mans was still chillin washing the dishes i actually forgot about him tbh. annndddd what a mistake that was. that whole scene with rowan basically telling sloane he hates her and she’s a psycho HURT because holy shit why did we have to go so hard? david doesn’t know about the nitty gritty details about her, why did we have to get so personal.
each killer we encountered was a great time (our cannibal who made us eat ass and had semen cookies and cream ice cream will not be spoken of anymore, but that’s where we got david) however out of them all, the chainsaw guy was probably the best one. the stakes were so high, he was absolutely insane, he KICKED sloane in the face and left a boot mark with the brand (‘: the descriptions of the revving and the laughing before they even went inside were so fun (scary but we signed up for this) and reminded me a lot of real life stories of serial killers and also dead by daylight (pc game i play) so that was great. i loved seeing rowan step up and fight for sloane in this entire scene, especially seeing the way it alters him for the rest of the book since he’s extremely afraid of losing her.
i don’t really have any noteworthy negatives to say about this story. i thoroughly enjoyed my time and look forward to the upcoming books about rowans brothers (lachlan and lark🫶🏼 but also aggressive rose and nerdy fionn?? pls). 100% recommend but check trigger warnings unless you’re desensitised like me (‘:
sloane and rowan were great and hot. i loved them together but also individually. one thing about sloane that i have found myself continuously thinking of is her constantly putting in effort despite her fears and doubts. she kept trying and giving things a go, and giving rowan a chance. it’s not something i’ve seen in many books really, usually there’s a lot of self sabotage, so this was refreshing and honestly i’ve been actively trying to channel my inner sloane and do the same irl.
rowan is our golden retriever protective serial killer book boyfriend🫶🏼 i loved him, particularly from the first kill when he tore apart our secret room watching her masturbate man🥲 disgusting, but rowan killing him in an animalistic way and then exposing his vulnerability looking for sloane right after - that’s where i knew.
there was a decent amount of smut, but i liked that it didn’t really happen throughout the book but rather more at the end. i enjoyed the plot despite it having unrealistic aspects (where are the cops and detectives?!) and genuinely looked forward to the plot and characters developing. also the big time jumps helped me connect to the characters more and believe their feelings, especially considering it’s a relatively short book. i’m not a fan of insta love, so the time jumps helped solve that issue.
the writing felt like i was part of them, with their jokes and banter, with their fears, heartbreak, excitement. it was really immersive and i found myself giggling and “awww”ing, and “nooo”ing out loud many times. as always, every romance will have moments that make me cringe (with this one for some reason it was her repeatedly saying ‘you’re the worstttt’, not sure why), but for the most part everything else i looked past or ate up.
i also loved that we got to really know the characters and see them actually talking to each other. even if we didn’t SEE, it was alluded to enough that i believed they knew a lot about each other and actually had substance to their relationship. this is a huge thing for me in any book. i need to see the characters bonding and see their chemistry or im just not going to buy it. i bought it here tho yay
in terms of the gore, i don’t get affected easily so i didn’t feel genuinely sick with any part of this book, but if you’re squeamish i’d definitely tell you to check trigger warnings. there’s skin peeling and slurping and eye plucking (gouging as rowan would say, particularly the left eye). maybe because i’ve always read or watched thrillers and horrors, i am desensitised to most things. i will add though, sloane, our orb weaver, had a very interesting method of killing her victims with the web map and different markings. side note here to appreciate the loss of colour in her art coming back after rowan (‘: i actually had to close the book and immediately tell meva (my best friend), and mush about it. that was quite heartwarming.
NOW LET ME GET TO DAVID. you’re telling me we adopted this poor lobotomised man, gave him a job and saved his life just for him to be slurping up rowans skin? absolutely not. i really didn’t trust david from the start but when heaps of time went by and mans was still chillin washing the dishes i actually forgot about him tbh. annndddd what a mistake that was. that whole scene with rowan basically telling sloane he hates her and she’s a psycho HURT because holy shit why did we have to go so hard? david doesn’t know about the nitty gritty details about her, why did we have to get so personal.
each killer we encountered was a great time (our cannibal who made us eat ass and had semen cookies and cream ice cream will not be spoken of anymore, but that’s where we got david) however out of them all, the chainsaw guy was probably the best one. the stakes were so high, he was absolutely insane, he KICKED sloane in the face and left a boot mark with the brand (‘: the descriptions of the revving and the laughing before they even went inside were so fun (scary but we signed up for this) and reminded me a lot of real life stories of serial killers and also dead by daylight (pc game i play) so that was great. i loved seeing rowan step up and fight for sloane in this entire scene, especially seeing the way it alters him for the rest of the book since he’s extremely afraid of losing her.
i don’t really have any noteworthy negatives to say about this story. i thoroughly enjoyed my time and look forward to the upcoming books about rowans brothers (lachlan and lark🫶🏼 but also aggressive rose and nerdy fionn?? pls). 100% recommend but check trigger warnings unless you’re desensitised like me (‘: