Published in 2024 by Slowburn, the first Into Darkness book is available on Amazon in hardcover, paperback, Kindle, audiobook, at libraries, and on the Libby app.

The audiobook shines with vivid performances. Jacob Morgan delivers Josh’s deep, Batman-like voice, while Elena Wolfe gives Aly a sharp, neurotic edge. Their chemistry heightens tension and amplifies emotional moments.

Allen lists extensive trigger warnings, alerting readers to disturbing themes like sexual content, abuse memories, stalking, home invasion, hidden cameras, hacking, theft, death, desecration, and various intense play. Reading these warnings is essential, as these elements are integral to the story. Allen’s transparency prepares readers and acknowledges their impact, showing careful handling of dark topics and helping readers decide whether to proceed.

Allen’s book is a dark rom-com, featuring hilarious banter between Aly Cappellucci, an ER trauma nurse drawn to masked men online, and Josh Hammond, who avoids his father’s legacy by expressing himself anonymously and posting masked thirst traps. When Aly comments, begging him to break into her house in a mask to fulfill her secret fantasies, Josh, intrigued by the chance to define himself on his own terms, decides to test how far their fantasies can go.

Allen juxtaposes serious and humorous elements through the stalker-sweetheart dynamic. The narrative can feel fragmented, as transitions between suspense and comedy blend into one another, not in a jarring way that derails readers from the story, just enough to wonder what just happened.

The story’s unhinged subject matter suggests Aly needs straightjacket therapy, given her repeated failure to call the police after telling herself she should. This casts doubt on her motivations. Josh’s actions go further; he doesn’t just need therapy. He needs jail for all the felonies he justifies.

Allen turns the tables; Aly becomes a predator. After a rapist she treated in the ER breaks into her house with a kill kit, Aly refuses to be a victim and, driven by a need for justice for his last victim, she and Josh plan to deliver him to the victim’s family farm. Things go downhill from there. Body in a trunk, secret mob family to the rescue, Gilomored into family dinners as payment for corpse disposal. Must be Tuesday.

Josh and Aly push each other to the edge with their twisted fantasies in this surprising 3-star read, where readers question the characters’ sanity one minute and laugh the next.