Master of Salt & Bones

Keri Lake could write a grocery list and I would probably buy it. Keri Lake, please add me to your ARC team. My wallet is suffering. Master of Salt & Bones is a gothic romance dripping with salt air, family secrets, madness, and enough generational trauma to keep an entire therapy practice in business. At the center of it all is Lucian Blackthorne, the scarred heir of Blackthorne Manor. Lucian is a man who is morally questionable, calculated, deviant, and obsessive. I spent most of the book wondering whether he was losing his mind or whether insanity was the only reasonable response to the family that raised him. Isadora Quinn arrives at Blackthorne Manor desperate for work and quickly finds herself tangled in the Blackthorne family's generations of secrets, lies, and cruelty. The mystery surrounding Lucian's past kept me turning pages. I found myself with questions surrounding his childhood, parents, and where the line could be drawn between memory, manipulation, and reality. More than once I found myself asking whether certain events actually happened or whether Lucian's fractured perspective had distorted them beyond recognition. The unexpected star of the novel is Blackthorne Manor itself. The house feels alive and looms over the story like another character. The atmosphere is impeccable with crumbling halls, a stormy coastline, and the constant sense that something terrible happened here long before Isa arrived. The setting reminded me of an exaggerated version of the moors in Wuthering Heights. Lucian is exactly the kind of hero Keri Lake excels at writing. He is possessive, damaged, obsessive, and more than a little depraved. Every scene involving him carried an undercurrent of danger that made it difficult to become comfortable. Fortunately, Isa understands darkness better than most people around her. Both characters are shaped by neglect, trauma, and isolation. This gives their connection an emotional foundation beneath all the obsession and nymphomaniac shenanigans. My biggest criticism is the plot. It often feels scattered and less polished than some of Lake's later work. Several twists pile on top of one another. Certain revelations left me more confused than shocked. By the final pages, I still had questions about what was real, what was manipulation, and whether some pieces of the mystery were intentionally ambiguous or simply underdeveloped. Readers looking for a tightly plotted spicy mystery may find themselves frustrated by this story. The audiobook was amazing. Ryan West and Stefanie Kay deliver a perfect duet performance. Ryan West's voice is tailor-made for a character like Lucian. He brings just the right amount of menace, obsession, and vulnerability to every scene. Their performances brought the characters to life and felt like a movie which heightened the gothic atmosphere. Master of Salt & Bones is another one of my dark romance favorites. Pick this up if you are looking for a storm-battered manor, morally gray hero who belongs in therapy, delicious gothic vibes, and enough spice to fog the windows.

I hope she turns this into a full novel -

I enjoyed the anticipation the book builds, and the mystery of what happened to lucians family and face. I read this quickly and was enjoying it. The ending ruined the book for me. After that I just started picking apart the the book. The mother was the worst twist, and the power dynamic of the cult and Lucian just didn't really make sense to me. I personally wouldn't't recommend because the ending was so bad.

Exceptionally dark, read trigger warnings. Felt somewhat like a depression and trauma themed mystery box in story form. Some of the plot you could piece together but as a whole it’s a lot and it felt like there was constantly something else to add to the depth of each situation.

Another great story by Keri Lake! I know my reviews are vague but I don't like to spoil!