10 Free Dark Romance Books to Download (PDF, ePub)
Posted by George Hartley
The dark romance shelf on Obooko gets more visitors than shelves I spent months building. I did not plan it. Readers kept turning up for mafia kings and vampires, so this week I went through the shelf, pulled the ten books you have downloaded most, and checked that every one is live and free today.
Dark romance is the corner of the genre where the hero is the problem: a crime boss, a captor, a creature of the night, a cowboy who does not take no for an answer. The love story still lands, it just takes the long way round. These are adult books with adult themes, and I have kept the descriptions PG-13 so you can read this on the bus.
One note on who is missing. Sylvia Day's A Dark Kiss of Rapture was in our Pick Your Trope post in August, so it sits this one out. Everything below is ranked by total downloads on Obooko, and every count is from the book page as of today.
1. Catching Caroline by Sylvia Day
Jack Shaw's reputation as a libertine is well earned, right up until he runs into Lady Caroline Seton and wants more than a stolen kiss. Caroline is hiding a secret that could cost him his life. Sylvia Day before the bestseller lists, and you can see why the lists came.
41,100 downloads. PDF, ePub and Kindle. Download Catching Caroline.
2. The Devil in a Stetson by L. R. Wards
Cassie Jensen is waitressing in a small town, her father a few weeks dead, broke and trying to hold it together. The only person with the means to help is Blake Eckert, a rough, tough cowboy who has never taken no for an answer, and Cassie has no choice but to accept. The book is about what that help costs her. This is the bad cowboy from the title, and he has 825 ratings and a five-star average to his name.
36,500 downloads. PDF. Download The Devil in a Stetson.
3. Immortal Promise: A Vampire Love Story by L. R. Wards
Lucas was raised and trained to lead his race, gave up on love long ago and settled for keeping his kind alive. Then a medical student called Elsa walks into his Los Angeles night and his entire purpose changes. Wards writes the vampire as a man with a job to do, which is rarer than it sounds, and 35,000 downloads say readers agree.
35,000 downloads. PDF and ePub. Download Immortal Promise.
4. Taken By a Mafia King by Hlengiwe Mathebula
Zekhethelo has the supportive family, the "perfect" boyfriend and a literature degree nearly finished. Then a mafia king knocks on her door at night and her tidy life is over. This is the darkest book on the list by some distance, so take the genre label seriously. It is book 2 in the series and readers have been arriving at it first, then going back for the rest.
26,400 downloads. PDF, ePub and Kindle. Download Taken By a Mafia King.
5. Alexandra by Declan Stanley
Two people alone in a surging crowd on a Piccadilly line platform, there to say goodbye to each other, and the narrator does not want to. Stanley tells it in the first person and the book has the feel of a memory you keep going back over. The quietest entry here, and 25,800 people have downloaded it, so quiet is working.
25,800 downloads. PDF. Download Alexandra.
6. Kept by Zoe Winters
Greta is a cat therian, a shifter, and thanks to a quirk of her birth her blood is potent enough to kill for. When she learns her own tribe plans to sacrifice her, she goes to Dayne, a sorcerer with the power to keep her alive, and the deal they strike gives the book its title. If you like your paranormal with a proper bargain at the centre, start here.
23,500 downloads. PDF. Download Kept.
7. Blindsight by Kait Nolan
Isla is a Seer, and her gift has made her the permanent captive of a crime lord of the paranormal. Ransom, a Fae assassin, offers her a way out, but when she touches his hand she sees only blood, fire and the end of days. A novella, so it is a one-sitting read, and a good first taste of Nolan if you have not met her.
17,700 downloads. PDF, ePub and Kindle. Download Blindsight.
8. The Mafia King & Me by Hlengiwe Mathebula
The sequel to Taken By a Mafia King. Zekhethelo is forced out of Zweli's house the same way she was forced into marrying him, hears his girlfriend is pregnant and files for divorce. That, of all things, is what makes him fight for the marriage. Read book 2 first; the payoff here depends on it.
17,300 downloads. PDF, ePub and Kindle. Download The Mafia King & Me.
9. Her Prince, Her Master by Dorothy Strangelove
Eve met the mysterious Jonny in her late teens and never got over him. Years later he walks back into her life unexpectedly, and his other life, in the shadowy end of espionage, comes with him. The opening scene has the narrator covered in blood that is not hers, which tells you the register. I would recommend it to anyone who wants the spy thriller and the romance in one book.
15,500 downloads. PDF. Download Her Prince, Her Master.
10. Devil's Descent Volume 1: Purgatory by Claudia D. Christian
Julian Douglas exists only for the night and has decided Lily Walker belongs to him. Lily lives for the night too, and wants out of the nightmare of her new master. Or so she keeps telling herself. The book asks who is really free, the master or the one who never quite runs, and volume 1 is only the start of the descent.
11,700 downloads. PDF. Download Devil's Descent Volume 1.
Vampires and shifters for October
Four of these double as spooky-season reading, if you would rather have your Halloween with a love story attached. Immortal Promise is the vampire one. Kept has a cat shifter and a sorcerer. Blindsight has a Fae assassin and a vision of the end of the world. Devil's Descent belongs to the night entirely. Read them in that order through October and you will finish on the 31st with the darkest one, which feels right.
How to download them
Every book above is free. Open the book page, choose PDF or ePub (Kindle where the author has supplied it) and it is yours to keep, no DRM. After your first download we ask you to create a free account. If you read on a Kindle, the ePub file sends straight to it through Amazon's Send to Kindle.
The full shelf lives at free dark romance books and it grows most weeks, because authors keep uploading and I keep approving the good ones. If one of these ten hooks you, tell me which. I read every reply.