Lord of Bones by Aiden Pierce

LORD OF BONES has been chilling on my Kindle for a long time, waiting for when I got back into dark fantasy romance. Which was interesting because this was neither as dark nor as fantastical as I thought it would be. It opens up in the real world with the heroine, Rayven, robbing a grave. She's a professional grave robber in the 21st century, because apparently people are still making like it's ancient Egypt and burying themselves with their jewels. Inheritance who? Don't ask questions.

Anyway, one day, Rayven and her boyfriend rob the wrong tomb: it's the tomb of a woman who was once the unwilling consort of the Lord of Bones, a demon of the underworld who guides souls throughout the various levels (above and below). He's furious to see his ex-consort's tomb violated-- only HE is allowed to do that-- and as punishment, he kills her boyfriend and drags her down to hell to punish as he sees fit. Except he's a little too attracted to her so the punishments are sexy punishments.

However, remembering how his consort tried to get away from him (TW: unaliving herself in creative and horrific ways), he decides to give Rayven a sporting chance. If she can escape from his labyrinth and survive all the horrors in there, he will set her free. But in the meantime, there's lots of degrading and creatively painful sex to be had, so let the games begin.

This is like a very spicy cross between Beauty and the Beast and Labyrinth. I saw another reviewer saying that it feels like Labyrinth fanfiction at times and I could definitely see that: the moving hands in the walls, the oubliette, the time limit to solve the labyrinth, etc. There's also definite Beauty and the Beast elements too, as the skeleton daddy is a little possessive of his fruit trees and he has talking objects in his castle (including a teapot, although this one is no Mrs. Potts). The demonic hierarchy and humiliation sex reminded me of Harley Laroux's work, although I don't think I've ever seen a book where the hero banged the heroine with a wine bottle so he could "drink" her. When I posted about that on Bluesky, I had two people IMMEDIATELY ask me for the title. (Which I happily provided upon request.)

I honestly haven't come close to finding a book that reminded me of my Quizilla years as much as this one did. The alt-goth heroine, the compelling silliness of the plot, the smutty homages to cult classics, and the "I hope my mom doesn't see me reading this" vibes of the outrageous sex scenes gave me flashbacks to being fourteen and staying up until 5am reading Lestat smut on my laptop. I regretted nothing then and I regret nothing now. Will I read more of the series? Probably. It ends on a cliffhanger and the hero had a lot of character development. I have to see what happens at that sinister party with his brothers.

3 out of 5 stars