Here are 100 books that Descent fans have personally recommended if you like
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I have been fascinated by the role of power dynamics and psychological games in relationships for as long as I can remember, frequently seeking out entertainment and exploring these topics to make sense of what was happening in the world around me. Now as a writer of 42 novels, many of my stories center around these themes and their consequences and complications, always from a point of view that empowers women. Dirty Filthy Rich Men, and its follow-up Dirty Filthy Rich Love, specifically focus on the difference between the devastating act of rape and consensual rape play, with the intention of validating women who are drawn to edgier fantasies in fiction.
Messed up, crazy, destructive relationships are my jam and Stylo Fantome nails the fantasy in Degradation, book one of the Kane Trilogy. I’m also ever intrigued by power imbalance, something spotlighted between Jameson and Tatum. Add to that their searing chemistry and humiliation kink, and this book is fire. Highly recommend if you’re looking for dirty billionaires.
Eighteen year old Tatum O'Shea is a naive, shy, little rich girl. Twenty-three year old Jameson Kane is smart, seductive, and richer. They come together for one night, one explosion, one mistake, and Tate is hurled into space – no family, no money, and no Jameson.
Seven years later, life is going pretty good for Tate, when she runs into Jameson again. This time, she thinks she's ready for him. She doesn't have a naive bone left in her body, and she can't even remember what shy feels like. Jameson has evolved, as well – sharp words, sharper wit, and…
I have been fascinated by the role of power dynamics and psychological games in relationships for as long as I can remember, frequently seeking out entertainment and exploring these topics to make sense of what was happening in the world around me. Now as a writer of 42 novels, many of my stories center around these themes and their consequences and complications, always from a point of view that empowers women. Dirty Filthy Rich Men, and its follow-up Dirty Filthy Rich Love, specifically focus on the difference between the devastating act of rape and consensual rape play, with the intention of validating women who are drawn to edgier fantasies in fiction.
It’s impossible to talk about kinky billionaires without mentioning Jonathan Drazen. Featuring an up-and-coming lounge singer and the rich man who wants to have his way with her, Reiss avoids the stereotypical BDSM tropes, delivering a fresh and unique look at a healthy kink
relationship. Though the book is coming on its tenth anniversary, it remains legendary for
any true dirty billionaire fan.
The COMPLETE USA Today Bestselling series Jonathan Drazen is a beautiful, damaged billionaire with a taste for obedience. Monica is a struggling musician who obeys no man. But she just made a little wager with him--one she's sure she can win. If she loses, she spends the night under his command.
If she wins... it doesn't matter. She just found out Jonathan doesn't lose his bets, and his women always end up where he wants them.
And this little bet? Turns out it's for far more than a night on her knees.
I have been fascinated by the role of power dynamics and psychological games in relationships for as long as I can remember, frequently seeking out entertainment and exploring these topics to make sense of what was happening in the world around me. Now as a writer of 42 novels, many of my stories center around these themes and their consequences and complications, always from a point of view that empowers women. Dirty Filthy Rich Men, and its follow-up Dirty Filthy Rich Love, specifically focus on the difference between the devastating act of rape and consensual rape play, with the intention of validating women who are drawn to edgier fantasies in fiction.
Psychological games and manipulation are two of my favorite dark romance tropes, and Amelia weaves both into this steamy release from Dangerous Press. Twisty and sexy, Dark Reign keeps readers on their toes and delivers a satisfying cliffhanger to boot. I couldn’t wait to dive into the second book, which landed even better than the first.
"Dark Reign is sinful, deliciously complex and naughty, with an anti-hero who's hauntingly addicting." - Marni Mann, USA Today bestselling author
Wealthy. Reclusive. Dangerous. Emerson LeBlanc doesn’t enter society much. He only ventures out in pursuit of new art for his collection. It starts with a haunting painting. Then he meets the artist...
Innocent Daphne Morelli is more exquisite than anything he’s ever seen. He becomes obsessed with her. It doesn’t matter that she’s a living, breathing person with her own hopes and dreams.
I have been fascinated by the role of power dynamics and psychological games in relationships for as long as I can remember, frequently seeking out entertainment and exploring these topics to make sense of what was happening in the world around me. Now as a writer of 42 novels, many of my stories center around these themes and their consequences and complications, always from a point of view that empowers women. Dirty Filthy Rich Men, and its follow-up Dirty Filthy Rich Love, specifically focus on the difference between the devastating act of rape and consensual rape play, with the intention of validating women who are drawn to edgier fantasies in fiction.
I could not put this book down. Already a favorite author of mine, Nikki Sloane surprised me with this sensual fairytale of a novel. It’s both inventive and twisted, deftly handling the love triangle as well as the power dynamics. Not only does Sloane knock the kink out of the park in this one, she also conveys all the fantasy of the uber-rich life without missing a thing.
No one knows how new members are selected to the board of Hale Banking and Holding. But there are rumors of a sordid rite of initiation.
Whispers how one woman and nine men disappear into a boardroom.
This time, that woman will be me.
The Hale family owns everything—the eighth largest bank in the world, everyone in our town, even the mortgage on my parents’ mansion. And now Royce Hale wants to own me.
He is charming. Seductive. Ruthless. But above all, he’s the prince of lies. My body may tighten with white-hot desire under his penetrating gaze, but I…
I’m completely obsessed with dark romance books! Seriously, after more than fifteen years of diving into these wild novels, I’ve uncovered so many gems that I can’t get enough of. I’m not here for stories about happy-go-lucky people; I want all the drama, all the angst, and all those swoon-worthy anti-heroes who make my heart race! These books are like a delicious escape, where every plot twist keeps me on my toes, and every character is delightfully flawed. It’s a rollercoaster ride of passion and drama. I love getting lost in the emotional chaos and gripping stories where anything can happen.
This is one of the most intense and gripping dark romances I've ever read. The story follows Caleb, a damaged man seeking revenge, and Livvie, the innocent girl he kidnaps. From the start, I was pulled into their twisted, complicated dynamic. It’s dark, raw, and pushes boundaries, but I couldn’t stop reading. Caleb is a character you both hate and feel for, while Livvie’s journey from fear to something more complex kept me glued to the pages.
He’s the morally greyest character, and I hated to love him, but that’s what made him unforgettable. This book will definitely leave a mark. Caleb will always be one of my favorite anti-heroes, making this an unforgettable dark romance that still stands as the best I’ve ever read.
Please heed all warnings. ****This is a series about captivity in a FICTIONAL and EROTICIZED setting. It contains very disturbing situations, dubious consent, strong language, and graphic violence.****
OVER 150,000 COPIES SOLD!
This edition of CAPTIVE IN THE DARK features a new cover that when combined with the other books in DARK DUET: Platinum Edition series makes a lovely addition to any bookshelf.
It is NO DIFFERENT in content from previous editions of the series.
CAPTIVE IN THE DARK (BOOK 1): Caleb is a man with a singular interest in revenge. Kidnapped as a young boy and sold into slavery…
I was trained in physics and applied mathematics, but my mother—a teacher of literature and history—secured a place for the humanities in my intellectual luggage, and I finally ended up in the social sciences. One of my first encounters with economics was John Nash’s theory of bargaining, illustrating how a wealthy person will gain more from a negotiation than a pauper, thus reinforcing inequality and leading to instability. Decades later, I returned to this problem and found that relatively little had still been done to analyze it. I believe that a combination of mathematical tools and illustrations from history, literature, and philosophy is an appropriate way of approaching the complex of inequality.
Torgny Lindgren’s short novel (100+ p.) is a tersely written tragedy from 19th-century northern Sweden, describing how an originally neutral relationship between a landowner-tradesman and a family develops into a nightmare of economic and sexual exploitation.
This is fiction but nonetheless a brilliant illustration of the origins of inequality. Lindgren was one of Sweden’s most eminent writers, a member of the Swedish Academy, and well-known for his characteristic, biblically tainted language (a challenge to the translator).
This is a dark story, although there are some rays of light—from art (represented by music) as well as from hope in an intervention from some benign providence.
A professor of Chinese and Japanese, Asian Studies, and Women’s Studies at Vassar College, my research has focused on the cross-cultural fertilization between Chinese and Japanese literary traditions and the influence of Daoist philosophy in East Asian Literature. I’ve published widely on the subject, including a book, Bashô and the Dao: The Zhuangzi and the Transformation of Haikai. I began research on the “comfort women”—victimsof Imperial Japan’s military sexual slavery during the Asia Pacific War (1931-1945)—in 2002when working with a Vassar student on her thesis about the “comfort women” redressmovement. Since then, I’ve worked closely with Chinese researchers and local volunteers, interviewing the eyewitnesses and survivors of the Japanese military “comfort stations” in China,and visiting the now-defunct sites.
This book is essential reading on the “comfort women” issue. Originally published in Japanese in1995, it has inspired many readers to look more deeply into the history of Imperial Japan'swartime “comfort women.” I consulted this book frequently in my own research and writing about the subject. The book provides a wealth of documentary evidence and first-person testimonies, convincingly proving the Japanese military’s direct involvement in setting up andadministering the comfort stations. This English edition includes introductions by both the authorand the translator, making the story accessible for English-speaking readers.
The colorful handmade costumes of beads and feathers swirl frenetically, as the Mardi Gras Indians dance through the streets of New Orleans in remembrance of a widely disputed cultural heritage. Iroquois Indians visit London in the early part of the eighteenth century and give birth to the "feathered people" in the British popular imagination. What do these seemingly disparate strands of culture share over three hundred years and several thousand miles of ocean? Artfully interweaving theatrical, musical, and ritual performance from the eighteenth century to the present in London and New Orleans, Cities of the Dead takes a look at…
I find it crucially important that we acknowledge that slavery is a global phenomenon that still exists this very day. Dutch historians like me have an obligation to show that the Dutch East India Company, called the world’s first multinational, was a major slave trader and employer of slavery. I am also personally involved in this endeavour as I am one of the leaders of the “Exploring the Slave Trade in Asia” project, an international consortium that brings together knowledge on this subject, and is currently a slave trade in Asia database.
Although broaching many more themes than slavery, this book gives us a unique insight into how local patterns of enslavement linked up with the growing colonial presence of the Dutch and Portuguese in Timor (East Indonesia). The book has been thoroughly researched by the world’s most knowledgeable scholar on this subject. For me, it is a source of inspiration for how local forms of enslavement can be studied in interaction with European colonial expansion.
European traders and soldiers established a foothold on Timor in the course of the seventeenth century, motivated by the quest for the commercially vital sandalwood and the intense competition between the Dutch and the Portuguese. Lords of the Land, Lords of the Sea focuses on two centuries of contacts between the indigenous polities on Timor and the early colonials, and covers the period 1600-1800.
I was introduced to genealogy, family pride, and racism as an only child. Growing up in Birmingham scarred me. Since young adulthood, I have worked on being an antiracist. I found that research on my ancestors, especially my maternal slaveholding side, helped me know my history, my family’s history as enslavers, my Black cousins, and what it means to be an American with all its flaws. I never tire of this research. It teaches me so much, has offered great gifts, and has built me a new family.
I no longer remember how, around 2018, I discovered this remarkable 1850 travelogue and presentation of observations on slavery by the man most people know as a landscape architect. Before his landscaping, Olmstead was hired by the now New York Times to travel the South interviewing and recording all he could from whites, whether rich or poor, slave owners or not, and enslaved Blacks. An added treasure: I loved reading about his travel experiences by boat, horse, train, and stagecoach, as well as the challenges of finding places to overnight.
The horrors of slavery come through without any preaching. I still think about this book a lot and what I learned from it–aspects of Southern life in the 1850s presented by someone trying to be fair and observant without a special agenda.
Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) is best known for designing parks in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Chicago, Boston, and the grounds of the Capitol in Washington. But before he embarked upon his career as the nation's foremost landscape architect, he was a correspondent for the New York Times , and it was under its auspices that he journeyed through the slave states in the 1850s. His day-by-day observations,including intimate accounts of the daily lives of masters and slaves, the operation of the plantation system, and the pernicious effects of slavery on all classes of society, black and white,were largely collected in The Cotton…
I am a historian of slavery and resistance in early America and in the Atlantic world, and I have long been passionate about how enslaved people refused to accept the chattel system and the many creative ways they found to resist their status. It has also become a central goal of mine to tell their stories and make sure we know more about how slave resistance influenced U.S. society in the past and how it shapes the world in which we live today.
While we generally know the main details of several major slave uprisings in early American history.
Rucker dives deeper into the African cultural forces that influenced these episodes and how the expression of African cultural idioms during these resistance movements tells us more about the formation of African American culture.
By focusing on these cultural expressions, Rucker gives fresh insight into major slave uprisings and African American history which also makes for a fascinating read.
The River Flows On offers an impressively broad examination of slave resistance in America, spanning the colonial and antebellum eras in both the North and South and covering all forms of recalcitrance, from major revolts and rebellions to everyday acts of disobedience. Walter C. Rucker analyses American slave resistance with a keen understanding of its African influences, tracing the emergence of an African American identity and culture. Rucker points to the shared cultural heritage that facilitated collective action among both African- and American-born slaves, such as the ubiquitous belief in conjure and spiritual forces, the importance of martial dance and…
