Overall ★★★☆☆ 3.4/5
- ✓ 3.94 Goodreads average, about 982,000 ratings
- ✓ 70% four or five stars, 12% one or two
- ✓ Consent complaints dominate the one star reviews
- ✓ Cliffhanger makes this half a story
Haunting Adeline Review: Content Warnings, Spice and Who Should Skip
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Verdict: A compulsive, extremely dark stalker romance with a gothic house mystery and a devoted readership, held back by a hero whose non-consensual behaviour many readers refuse to see as romantic, prose that undercuts its own menace, and a 600 page first half that stops on a cliffhanger.
Best for: Adult readers who already know dark romance, actively want a stalker hero and dub-con and non-con fantasy on the page, and can forgive clunky writing, a sagging mystery subplot and the need to buy a second long book to reach the ending.
Heat level: ★★★★★ (5/5, explicit and plentiful; TV Insider's Swooon gives it 5 of 5 flames, and we could not confirm the romance.io band)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ (3.4/5, a 3.94 Goodreads average across about 982,000 ratings, pulled down by a loud one star minority (6% of raters) who object to the consent content and the writing, and by a cliffhanger that makes this half a story)
Tropes: Stalker romance, Villain to lovers, Dub-con and non-con, Touch her and die, Morally grey vigilante hero, Haunted gothic house, Family secrets in old journals, Hacker hero, Cat and mouse chase, Cliffhanger duet.
Haunting Adeline is the first half of H.D. Carlton's Cat and Mouse duet, a dark romance set in and around Parsons Manor outside Seattle, where Adeline Reilly, a successful writer who has just moved into her late grandmother's gothic house, finds herself watched, followed and visited at night by Zade Meadows, a hacker who runs an anti-trafficking operation and has decided, after one book signing, that she belongs to him.
The numbers are enormous and sharply split. Goodreads shows a 3.94 average from about 982,000 ratings and roughly 105,000 written reviews, with 70% of raters giving four or five stars and 12% giving one or two, and the one and two star shares are equal at 6% each. Carlton self-published it in August 2021, BookTok turned it into one of the most argued about romances of the decade, and in July 2026 she confirmed a film is in development. The Line Up describes opinions as landing on the extremes, with little middle ground. That split, and what sits on either side of it, is what you need to understand before you open it.
What Is Haunting Adeline About?
On paper this is a gothic stalker romance with a mystery inside it. Adeline inherits Parsons Manor, a house with a history, and finds her great-grandmother's journals, which describe an ancestor pursued by a man who never let her go. As Adeline reads, her own situation starts to echo the old one: roses left for her, notes, signs that someone has been inside the house. Zade, meanwhile, is hunting a trafficking ring, and the two threads begin to cross.
In practice it is one of the most extreme books to reach a mass audience through BookTok, and the author says so herself. Carlton's own warnings list non-consent and dub-con between the main characters, stalking, graphic violence, human and child trafficking, child sacrifice and mentions of child death, and her shop page adds that it ends on a cliffhanger. She recommends it for adults only and tells readers with any triggers that it may not be for them. Readers who arrive from a cute TikTok edit expecting a spooky love story get something much closer to a horror novel with explicit sex, and that gap drives a large share of the angriest reviews.
What Makes This Stalker Dark Romance Work
- Zade's obsession: Five star readers single out Zade's single-minded devotion and his dialogue as the draw, and Smart Bitches' guest reviewer gave it a B+ for the power play between the leads.
- The house and the journals: Parsons Manor, the great-grandmother's journals and an old unsolved death give the first act a gothic hook that Eclectic Review and BookBrowse both lead with.
- Adeline's voice: Eclectic Review calls Adeline refreshingly quirky, and her humour is what fans say keeps the darkness from becoming unbearable.
- Compulsion: Even a three star Goodreads reviewer who found it triggering called it compulsively readable, and positive reviews describe devouring it despite the length.
- Upfront warnings: Carlton publishes a content warning list and an 18+ recommendation, and Highline College's student paper credits her for stating plainly that trafficking is never presented as normal.
Book Synopsis
Adeline Reilly writes successful novels and lives a fairly solitary life. When her grandmother dies, she moves into Parsons Manor, the old family house outside Seattle, a place full of creaks, dust and her family's history. Among her grandmother's things she finds journals kept by her great-grandmother, Gigi, and starts reading them in the evenings. They describe a woman who was followed by a man she couldn't shake, and a story that ended badly.
Then the present starts to look like the past. A rose appears where it shouldn't. Things in the house have been moved. Adeline feels watched, and she is right, because Zade Meadows noticed her at a book signing and has made her the centre of his attention. Zade is a skilled hacker who leads an organisation that hunts traffickers, and he is as ruthless with the men he tracks as he is fixated on her. He makes no secret of what he wants, and he doesn't ask permission.
The first half of the book is a contest of nerve. Adeline tries to call his bluff, tell herself it's nothing and keep living alone in the manor, while Zade escalates from presence to contact. The author's warnings make clear their sexual relationship begins without real consent, and the book frames Adeline's response as a mix of fear and attraction she doesn't want to admit. Running alongside it, Zade's investigation into a trafficking network gets closer to home, and Gigi's journals keep hinting that Parsons Manor holds more than one buried secret. By the midpoint, Adeline knows exactly who Zade is and has not decided what to do about him.
Our Review
The pull is the real strength, and nobody disputes it. Carlton built a hero for readers who want an obsessive, protective, frightening man in fiction, and Zade delivers that fantasy without apology. Five star reviewers talk about his lines, his intensity and the push and pull with Adeline, and Smart Bitches' guest reviewer, who rated it B+, argues it gives readers a safe place to explore fantasies they would never want in real life. With about 982,000 Goodreads ratings and a sequel that rates higher, the appetite is not in question.
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The second strength is atmosphere. Parsons Manor, the journals and the echo between Adeline and her ancestor give the opening a real gothic engine, and BookBrowse and Eclectic Review both put that family mystery at the front of their descriptions. Adeline is also funnier than the premise suggests. Her sarcasm keeps the early chapters from collapsing into dread, which is why some readers who expected pure misery found it easier to read than they feared.
Where it struggles is consent, and that is the dominant complaint by a distance. In the one star reviews surfaced on the Goodreads book page, readers call Zade a hypocrite who rescues trafficking victims while assaulting the woman he claims to love, and several say Adeline refuses him clearly and he ignores it. Others object to the Stockholm syndrome dynamic and worry about teenage readers finding it through TikTok. Smart Bitches' reviewer reads the consent as fuzzier, saying Adeline never explicitly says no, which shows how differently readers parse the same scenes. Behind that sit the craft problems: reviewers call the writing juvenile and cringeworthy, mock out of place colloquialisms, find the journals and murder mystery dull, and say the book is far too long for a story that stops halfway.
Reset one expectation before you start. This is not a dark-ish romance with a possessive hero. It is marketed with warnings because it needs them, and the content goes well past most books shelved as dark on BookTok. At least one reviewer, writing for a college book blog, argues the trafficking plot borrows imagery from online conspiracy theories, which is a single voice but worth knowing. If you came for a stalker fantasy and know your limits, the warnings are accurate. If you came because a friend called it spooky and romantic, read the list on Carlton's site first and take it literally.
The cliffhanger is the last cost. Carlton's own shop page warns that it ends on one, and Smart Bitches' reviewer says a happy ending is nowhere in sight by the final page. Hunting Adeline runs to 684 pages in its Kindle edition, so the full story runs to more than 1,300 pages.
Our honest note: A compulsive, polarising stalker romance whose devoted fans and furious critics are reacting to the same thing: a hero who doesn't take no for an answer, written without much polish. Read it only if that is the fantasy you are actively looking for and you plan to read Hunting Adeline too; skip it without guilt if non-consent on the page is a line for you.
| Element | In Haunting Adeline |
|---|---|
| Central relationship | Adeline Reilly, a writer living alone in her family's gothic house, and Zade Meadows, the hacker and anti-trafficking vigilante who stalks her |
| Core tropes | Stalker romance, villain to lovers, dub-con and non-con, touch her and die, haunted family house |
| Setting | Parsons Manor outside Seattle, Washington, with a family history told through old journals |
| Heat level | 5/5, explicit and plentiful, including non-consensual and kink scenes |
| Series | Cat and Mouse #1 of a duet; ends on a cliffhanger and concludes in Hunting Adeline |
| Content notes | Non-consent and dub-con between the main characters, stalking, graphic violence, human trafficking, child trafficking, child sacrifice, mentions of child death, explicit sexual content (author's list); degradation, gun play and somnophilia (TV Insider, The Line Up); torture and dismemberment (Highline College's Thunderword) |
How Dark and Spicy Is Haunting Adeline?
As spicy as the scale goes. TV Insider's Swooon gives it 5 of 5 flames and calls it the spiciest book on its spice menu, and Goodreads readers shelve it under dark romance, spicy and smut. The sex scenes are frequent and explicit, and a large share of them sit inside the dub-con and non-con material the author warns about, alongside kinks TV Insider and The Line Up list as degradation, gun play and somnophilia. The Line Up says one scene involving a gun drove much of the TikTok discussion. We score heat 5. We couldn't open romance.io to confirm its steam band, so that number comes from TV Insider and reader shelving rather than romance.io.
The darkness is the bigger question, and it runs in two directions. One is the romance itself: stalking, home invasion and sexual contact without consent from the hero. The other is the thriller plot, where Carlton's warnings and the student paper Thunderword list human and child trafficking, child sacrifice, torture, dismemberment and gore. The book describes violence in detail. If you are new to dark romance or unsure where your limits sit, our guide to whether dark romance is safe to read and our content warnings guide are a better first step than this book.
Who Should Read This Book?
You'll likely love it if: you are an adult dark romance reader who wants a stalker hero, you have read and accepted the author's full warning list, and you enjoy a gothic mystery running under the obsession.
You may want to skip it if: you are under 18, sexual assault, stalking or trafficking touch your own life, non-consent between the leads is a hard line, you want a hero whose behaviour is challenged on the page, or you won't read a 600 page book that ends unresolved. Skipping it is a reasonable choice, not a failure of nerve.
In short: a huge, divisive dark romance that delivers exactly what its warnings say, so believe them.
What Readers Are Actually Saying (October 2026)
Five years after its 2021 release, Haunting Adeline is still the book people point to when they argue about how far BookTok romance should go. In July 2026 Carlton confirmed a film is in development, Geo News reported, though no studio, cast or date has been named, and a Deviant Ink and Blackstone graphic novel is due in early 2027, according to Netflix Junkie. Earlier hype ran ahead of reality: Dexerto reported in 2024 that a viral trailer starring Ana de Armas was fan made. BookBrowse's author note credits Carlton with more than 12 million copies sold across her books. We could not open Reddit, StoryGraph or romance.io for this review, so the discussion here comes from Goodreads, published reviews and press coverage.
Why readers love it: Fans love Zade, and it isn't close. Positive reviews talk about his devotion, his voice and the sense that he would burn the world for Adeline, and readers who came looking for the darkest book on the shelf say it delivered. Adeline's humour and the gothic setup come next, and readers repeatedly say they read it far faster than its length suggests. Eclectic Review compares the experience to a train wreck you can't look away from. For readers who treat dark romance as fantasy with clear walls around it, that is the appeal.
What readers argue about and complain about: The complaint is consent, and it is loud. Goodreads one star reviews call the relationship abusive, call Zade a hypocrite, object to readers excusing assault because the hero is attractive or a vigilante, and question how a book like this holds an average near 4. Several flag that it reaches young readers through TikTok, and the Thunderword piece frames the whole debate as romanticising harm versus shedding light on it. The writing is the second target: juvenile, corny, badly edited and too long, with the journal and murder mystery subplots called dull and forgettable. Smart Bitches' reviewer, broadly positive, still skimmed and found the journals interrupted the flow. At least one reader dislikes how the trafficking plot echoes conspiracy theories.
The series question worth asking first: This book does not resolve. It stops on a cliffhanger, and the story finishes in Hunting Adeline (January 2022), which averages 4.06 on Goodreads from about 664,000 ratings, higher than book one. Carlton says the earlier novella Satan's Affair (3.71) isn't required and is darker in her view. Goodreads also lists the prequel Phantom (2025, 3.91) and Where's Molly (2024, 4.15) in the series. If you start, budget for both main books.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Haunting Adeline a dark romance?
Yes, one of the most extreme in wide circulation. The author warns for non-consent and dub-con between the leads, stalking, graphic violence, human and child trafficking, child sacrifice and mentions of child death.
How spicy is Haunting Adeline?
Very. TV Insider's Swooon rates it 5 of 5 flames, and much of the sex is dub-con or non-con. We couldn't confirm romance.io's band.
Does Haunting Adeline end on a cliffhanger?
Yes. Carlton's own shop page says so, and the story concludes in Hunting Adeline.
What age is Haunting Adeline for?
Adults. Carlton recommends 18+ and tells readers with any triggers that it may not be for them.
Do I need to read Satan's Affair first?
No. Carlton says the novella is optional and, in her view, darker than the duet.
Is there a Haunting Adeline movie?
In development only. Carlton confirmed a film in July 2026, but no studio, cast or release date had been announced when we checked.
If You Loved Haunting Adeline, Read These Next
Eikna doesn't yet review a book as extreme as this one, so treat these as gentler neighbours. For a possessive hero, a revenge plot and much lighter warnings, try Twisted Love. For an obsessive, morally grey hero in a mythology frame with more care around consent, read Neon Gods. And if the gothic house was the part you liked, Jane Eyre has the brooding secrets and none of the explicit content.
Browse more in dark romance, gothic romance, spicy romance and enemies to lovers romance, and read is dark romance safe to read before you pick the next one.
The Bottom Line
Haunting Adeline sets out to be the darkest romance on the shelf, a stalker fantasy wrapped around a gothic mystery and a trafficking thriller, and on darkness alone it succeeds. What works: Zade's obsession for the readers who want it, the eerie house and journals, and a pull that keeps people reading for 600 pages. What doesn't: a consent dynamic a large minority finds indefensible, writing that keeps breaking its own mood, and a cliffhanger that makes this half a book. If you know your limits, have read the warnings and want exactly this, it will give it to you. If non-consent between the leads is a line, skip it and don't look back.
The Eikna Overall Ranking
On the Eikna scale, Haunting Adeline ranks as a hugely popular but deeply divisive extreme dark romance, strongest in its obsessive hero and gothic setup, constrained by its consent content, its prose and a cliffhanger, and best approached by experienced dark romance readers who chose it deliberately rather than by newcomers following the hype.
The Evidence Scorecard
Eight dimensions, each scored out of 5 from the reader and critic evidence above. Overall is anchored on the reader ratings and adjusted for how much the recurring complaints cost the reading experience. Heat describes how explicit the book is; it is not a quality judgement. Every line marked ✓ is a checked finding, including the limits. How we assess books.
Romance ★★★☆☆ 3.3/5
- ✓ Zade's obsession is what five star readers praise
- ✓ Push and pull earns a B+ at Smart Bitches
- ✓ Gothic echo of an ancestor's stalker
- ✓ Many readers call the dynamic abuse, not romance
Characters ★★★☆☆ 3.2/5
- ✓ Adeline's humour praised by Eclectic Review
- ✓ Zade a hacker leading an anti-trafficking group
- ✓ Gigi's journals add a second heroine's story
- ✓ Zade called a hypocrite in many low reviews
Writing ★★★☆☆ 2.6/5
- ✓ Readers call it compulsive despite 629 pages
- ✓ Gothic house atmosphere sells the opening
- ✓ Four narrators on the Audible edition
- ✓ Called juvenile, corny and badly edited
Emotional impact ★★★★☆ 3.5/5
- ✓ Trafficking plot gives real stakes
- ✓ Fear and attraction pulled against each other
- ✓ Fans say it scratches a very specific itch
- ✓ Darkness can feel exploitative to critics
Heat level ★★★★★ 5/5
- ✓ TV Insider's Swooon rates it 5 of 5 flames
- ✓ Goodreads shelves it as smut and spicy
- ✓ Degradation, gun play and somnophilia listed
- ✓ Much of the sex is dub-con or non-con
Ending ★★★☆☆ 2.6/5
- ✓ Author warns it ends on a cliffhanger
- ✓ Concludes in 684 page Hunting Adeline
- ✓ No happy ending in sight, says Smart Bitches
- ✓ Readers call the stopping point frustrating
Re-read value ★★★★☆ 3.8/5
- ✓ Hunting Adeline rates higher at 4.06
- ✓ About 664,000 readers rated the sequel
- ✓ Film in development, graphic novel due 2027
- ✓ Many one star readers vow never again
Sources We Checked
- Goodreads: Haunting Adeline (average, ratings, reviews, star distribution, pages, first published, genres, community reviews)
- Goodreads: Cat and Mouse series page (series order and ratings for Satan's Affair, Phantom, Where's Molly)
- Goodreads: Hunting Adeline (average, ratings, pages, first published)
- H.D. Carlton: Library page (author's trigger warnings for Haunting Adeline)
- H.D. Carlton: Haunting Adeline hardback shop page (cliffhanger and content warning)
- H.D. Carlton: Extras and FAQ
- TV Insider Swooon: Haunting Adeline (5 of 5 flames, warnings)
- The Line Up: The Depravity of Haunting Adeline (February 2024)
- Thunderword, Highline College: Haunting Adeline, romanticizing or shedding light (November 2024)
- Smart Bitches, Trashy Books: guest review, B+ (January 2025)
- St. Johns River State College book blog: critical review
- Eclectic Review: Haunting Adeline (February 2026)
- SuperSummary: author insights (tropes, age recommendation, Satan's Affair note)
- SuperSummary: book brief
- BookBrowse: Haunting Adeline summary and author note
- McKinney Public Library catalogue: edition details (self-published, 583 page print edition)
- Farrells: 2024 paperback listing, ISBN 9781638932468
- Audible UK: Haunting Adeline audiobook (narrators)
- Geo News: film adaptation enters development (July 2026)
- Netflix Junkie: graphic novel adaptation announced (July 2026)
- Dexerto: the fake Haunting Adeline movie trailer explained (October 2024)
- romance.io (blocked to our fetcher; steam band not confirmed)
Checked October 6, 2026. Ratings and counts change; the numbers above are as of that date.
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