Bound and Unbound
Multiple explicit scenes with detail; sex is a real part of the plot.
Graphic. Crude, explicit vocabulary throughout the scenes.
Estimated from the blurb · 0 reader votes · Ending HEA
Tropes
Content warnings
Blurb
New York Times bestselling author Ali Hazelwood’s intoxicating paranormal romance novella duology—together for the first time in print and ebook! Read the captivating dark academia romance in Bound, then flip your book over to unleash the dangers of forbidden love in Unbound. Bound A reluctant con artist and a professor with too many secrets are bound by an arcane text—in more ways than one. Veronica “Vero” Mercer grew up with grifters for parents, and she knows her way around a con. When grad school bills pile up and her friends are in trouble, she turns her art history skills into a forgery side hustle. It’s supposed to be a short term deal, but her work draws the attention of Dr. Viktor Ashworth, a reserved, very British professor. Instead of turning her in, Ashworth kidnaps her—politely—and makes an unusual offer: forge a mysterious ancient manuscript for him. Soon Vero finds herself spending long nights with Viktor, bent over rare vellum samples and obscure inks. But as the con grows riskier, Vero has to wonder: what does Viktor really want, and why can’t she stay away? Unbound A five-thousand-year-old woman who has outlived empires. A doctor who has spent his life fighting death. They fates collide in a blood game of vengeance. Lilit of Nineveh has spent millennia in control. As a powerful revenant, she enforces one rule above all: protect mortals. Disciplined and focused, she has never made the same mistake twice, and she has learned that attachments can only lead to ruin. Enter Roman Martin. An overworked and relentlessly kind ER physician, he is the one mortal Lilit cannot quit. Any relationship between them is against everything Lilit has fought for. Still, she keeps coming back to him. Until someone starts hunting Lilit, and Roman is caught in the crossfire. When everything comes crashing down, Lilit must choose between the world she has sworn to protect and the man she was never meant to love.
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Problematic Summer Romance
Same author's age-gap forbidden slow burn with a guarded older man, minus the vampires and violence "contemporary and softer.
Parceira
Hazelwood's other paranormal romance keeps vampire-shifter politics and slow burn, but swaps forbidden secrecy for fated-mates devotion and less academia.
Shallow River
Also forbidden slow burn with morally grey men and violent captivity themes, but far darker and grimmer with an HFN, not tidy HEA.
Twisted Games
Another forbidden age-gap where a brooding protector crosses lines to keep her; contemporary royalty instead of vampires and dark academia.
Twisted Love
Another morally-grey, dangerous protector with a forbidden slow burn and violent secrets, though this one trades vampires and academia for contemporary mafia-adjacent angst.
Top Secret
Same campus setting, forbidden attraction and slow burn, but it's a lighter MM college romance with no paranormal darkness or kidnapping.