Disclaimer: This article does contain spoiler information and potentially triggering topics
There has been a frenzy online over the dark romance/horror book series by H.D. Carlton called Cat and Mouse, and for good reason. The books are aged (suggested) 18+ and focus on the main character Adeline Reilly, who in the chapters through her perspective, is referred to as “The Manipulator.”
The books also focus on her stalker who remains unnamed throughout the majority of book one, other than the nickname “Z” and in the chapters that are through his perspective he is referenced to as “The Shadow.”
Focusing on the first book of the series “Haunting Adeline”, right off the bat when you get to “The Shadow’s” perspective there is torture involved, mind you this is chapter two.
The book focuses strongly on human trafficking, child sacrifice, mentions of child death, as well as child trafficking. These topics along with the explicit sexual nature of the book is what is causing the dispute all over social media.
The questions of – is this book romanticizing the world problems listed above, and encouraging unhealthy relationships, or is it bringing light to stuff that is happening in real life, and to these issues that people don’t tend to talk about do to the uncomfortability of it, in a way that people might be able to tolerate more? – are continuously coming up in social media when mentioning this book.
Those questions are extremely opinionated, and the answers vary reader to reader. No answers are “wrong” or “right” they are simply personal opinions and answers to questions that people are asking themselves.
Carlton does have a trigger warning in the beginning of the book that does list all of the contents of the book, so if you skipped that, then later were disgusted with what you found, I don’t really know what to tell you. Carlton does encourage people to reach out to her if they have any questions, and to remember that your mental health matters.
The book makes it very clear that in no way is human/child trafficking normal, nor should it be, and Carlton does not try at all to make it sexual in an “enjoyable” way. There are light mentions of rape within those situations, but that is mostly inferred by the reader.
The book is a dark romance in all definitions, the timeline is based around Halloween and there is a “House of Mirrors” scene that a lot of people have been mentioning, whether it’s the absolute shock value of the scene, the fact that you may never go into a house of mirrors without thinking of this scene again (I’m guilty), or the creepy/sexy factor that it brings to the book. There are also topics of dismemberment, violence, and all around gore, which is definitely uncomfortable if you’ve never read books that have these topics in them.
The book is modern in the way that the story is told and it’s based locally in Seattle (which I think is very fun as a Seattleite and a book nerd myself). The fact that it is based in Seattle also brings a touch of E.L. James’ “Fifty Shades of Grey” to the series.
I would definitely recommend this book to any dark romance readers, especially the local ones, but I encourage you to read the trigger warning at the beginning of the book, and if you are still hesitant, read some honest reviews from real people (I love GoodReads for reviews.) This book is one of my favorites and I can’t stop coming back to it when I’m in a reading rut.