Review: The More I Hate - Blake Hensley

Review: The More I Hate - Book #1 Gilded Decadence Series - Blake Hensley - February 2024

Scrolling through my Kindle one day, searching for something to really sink my teeth into, I stumbled across The More I Hate by Blake Hensley. The moment I clicked on it and saw who was behind the pen name, I felt that familiar flutter of excitement as Blake Hensley is the combined forces of two of my absolute favourite dark romance authors, Zoe Blake and Alta Hensley, who have joined their surnames just as they've joined their talents. These two women are queens of the genre, and the idea of them collaborating had me immediately sold.

I'll be honest  I'd taken a bit of a break from dark romance lately. The books had started to blur into one another, leaning heavily into explicit content at the expense of the thing I actually crave most: chemistry. That slow-burning, charged, magnetic pull between two people that makes you forget to breathe. So I came into this one cautiously hopeful, and I'm so glad I did.

In The More I Hate, we meet Amelia, a woman on the verge of a cold, calculated business marriage  until a more powerful, more commanding billionaire named Luc sweeps in, shuts the whole thing down, and claims her for himself. Classic dark romance territory so far. But here's where it gets interesting: Amelia is nobody's prize. She is sharp, self-possessed, and absolutely relentless in the way she refuses to be underestimated. She doesn't just push Luc's buttons , she dismantles them entirely, getting so far under his skin that he can't ignore what's happening between them.

And Luc, deliciously morally grey as he is, slowly begins to realise he has finally met his match. For a man who has built walls so high and so thick he's convinced himself he's unlovable, Amelia becomes the one person capable of cracking that exterior not by being soft or yielding, but by being entirely, unapologetically herself.

The More I Hate is one of those rare dark romance reads that gets the balance right. It's dark where it needs to be, sensual without being gratuitous, and absolutely electric with the kind of chemistry that reminds you why you fell in love with the genre in the first place. Blake Hensley is a collaboration I'll be following very closely.

Amazon: https://amzn.to/4tEtXqw