November 4, 2024 • 88 mins
Today we discuss Butcher and Blackbird by Brynne Weaver. We will follow Sloane and Rowen as the two serial killers embark on a competition to see who is better and watch them fall in love along the way. Join us as we break down this book and discuss each riveting and spicy chapter!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to Crime and Passion, the channel where we deep dive into the dark and thrilling
(00:12):
world of true crime cases.
And also book reviews, mostly focusing on smut.
On Mondays we'll turn up the heat with our candid reviews of the latest in smut, or any
book really.
And Thursdays we'll unravel the mysteries behind some of the most notorious crimes.
So sit back, grab your popcorn or your coffee as we take you on this thrilling journey.
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I'm Destinee.
I'm Allison.
And today we are going to talk about Butcher and Blackbird by Brynn Weaver.
So Butcher and Blackbird is a dark romance novel that is about this female serial killer
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named Sloane, or her serial killer, Moniker, which is the orb weaver, and Rowan, who is
a serial killer as well, known as the Boston butcher.
The two end up meeting because after one of Sloane's kills, she accidentally gets trapped
(01:27):
by the man that she killed.
It was like his dying moment that he slams a cage door.
Probably worth noting that Sloane only kills other serial killers, or, you know, our words.
I can't say the word.
YouTube doesn't like it.
(01:48):
She kills the bad people who go on doing serial type of things.
So his last dying moment, he slams her in one of his cages that he had used on other
victims.
And that is how Rowan, the butcher, finds her.
Trapped in a cage, starving for days.
(02:11):
By the way, the guy kind of got his last win because he locked her in a cage when he died.
He quite literally got his final laugh.
Yes.
She was in there for so long, though.
She was imagining maggots that were crawling out of his dead body as pasta.
(02:36):
That's when you know that you're hungry.
The pasta, in her words, the pasta was crawling towards her.
That's horrible.
It's not pleasant.
But then comes Rowan, who the moment he finds out who she is, he like fangirls over her.
(03:02):
I mean, he goes nuts.
This guy, this weird guy, who randomly shows up in some other dude's basement, mind you.
We still don't know what he was doing there at this point.
That's true.
We do not.
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And then he just starts fangirling and gushing as soon as he finds out that she's the orb
weaver.
I mean, he ends up setting her free and taking her to get food and she...what was it that
they ate?
Was it ribs?
I think it was.
I think it was ribs.
She goes to town on those ribs.
(03:45):
Yes, she demolished them.
But in order for...because Rowan is completely smitten with her.
So in order for him to continue to see her, because he can tell that she's wanting to
bolt away and never return, he comes up with a game.
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Because they are both serial killers.
And they come up with a game or a competition where pretty much once a year, his brother,
Rowan's brother, will send them a location and they have to go to this location and find
(04:31):
the serial killer and whoever finds and kills the serial killer wins that round.
Kind of a weird game.
Keep in mind though, the brother is not also a serial killer.
He does not do that.
No, no.
He just finds the person for them.
(04:54):
He's just really well connected.
He just knows where to find serial killers.
So they start this competition because Rowan is instantly infatuated with her and just
can't let her go.
(05:15):
They start and the first time we see one of Sloan's kills is like a very Dexter-style
type of kill.
She's in like a cargo ship like crate.
That's the word I'm looking for.
(05:36):
Container?
Yes.
Cargo container?
Yeah.
Shipping container.
Yeah, shipping container.
That's it.
So she's in this shipping container with some dude strapped down to a table and she's on
the phone with her best friend who, mind you, does know that she is a serial killer.
(05:58):
And they're just having-
And probably also knows what she's doing in the moment.
How could she not?
The dude is screaming.
I mean, he's like screaming bloody murder and she's just carrying along about having
a normal conversation with her best friend about how she's got a crush on this guy while
(06:18):
she has a man strapped to her table naked.
Yeah.
That's all you can really say to that.
I mean, it's so nonchalant.
It's just-
(06:39):
Two brain cells.
One brain cell.
We just happened to share it.
One brain cell, two people.
Yeah.
But I mean, there's really nothing you can say about that.
It's just so...
It was just so normal for her.
Yeah.
(07:00):
Even Lark, her best friend, it was very normal for her too.
Yeah.
They were just carrying on like there wasn't some dude that had just been cut up.
But it gives you a glimpse into Sloane.
It's at that moment you understand she's done this a lot.
(07:24):
Yes.
She's truly a serial-
You know this is not her first time.
Yeah.
She's truly a serial killer.
But eventually, this dude is dead.
She does her disposing of it.
And then time for the competition.
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This Dexter style was not part of the competition.
That was just for funsies for her.
Yes.
Just another victim.
But then the time comes.
And they are sent to some backwoods run down in the middle of nowhere.
(08:15):
And they're chatting and they're flirting.
But we start to understand how smart Sloane is.
Because it becomes clear that she knew exactly who the serial killer was.
While Rowan could not get his head out of Sloane's butt.
(08:40):
Keeping him from realizing who the serial killer was.
And then it's divulged to all of us who it was.
So when they get to the inn, they meet the innkeeper.
And he seems kind of, you know, odd.
(09:02):
But I mean, what person in the middle who's running an inn in the middle of nowhere?
What else do you expect?
Yeah.
He's completely isolated.
Yes.
But then we have the bedroom scene.
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So Rowan starts hearing some noises.
And him and Sloane have rooms next to each other.
So they have an adjoining wall.
And as any creepy dude would do, he sticks his ear to the wall.
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Because he's hearing some very fascinating sounds on the other side of this wall.
Very intriguing noises.
And so he's listening.
And then he starts to hear another sound.
A more manly sound.
(10:11):
And then he decides to pick up a lamp and chunk it through the wall where he hears the
sound coming from, and there happens to be a man inside the wall.
And when he runs away, Rowan sees that there was a peephole into Sloane's room.
(10:33):
There was a man in the wall watching her do some really fun stuff to herself.
And Rowan loses his mind.
He goes nuts.
And that's where you kind of start to see how protective he is of her from an early
on standpoint.
(10:54):
Yeah.
Very protective.
Yes.
The protectiveness that most girlies would swoon for.
Yes.
Automatically.
He just wanted to protect her.
Yes.
Please.
I mean, we're all, anybody who reads these books is obviously in the smut world.
(11:23):
So we all know it's one of those tropes.
Don't touch what's mine.
Anybody who touches her.
This book definitely has that trope.
Yeah.
For sure.
And then when he confronts Sloane to tell her that there was a man watching her through
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the walls, it's revealed that the innkeeper was the serial killer that they were going
after.
And Sloane gets excited while Rowan is still pissed off.
Yes.
She does not even care.
Not at all.
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She's like, oh, I was being watched.
I knew it was him.
And Rowan's like, what?
She was doing it on purpose.
She had an idea.
She knew exactly who it was and she knew that he would be watching her because she realized
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his MO.
She runs off to try to chase him down.
Rowan chases after her.
Meanwhile, old creepy dude who owns the inn has already jumped into his vehicle and sped
away.
Granted, he...
(12:51):
This is where we get into like the fast and the furious moment where Rowan throws himself
at the vehicle and causes it to wreck.
He climbs on the hood, but he does what he has to do.
He feels like he needs to protect Sloane.
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Sloane was really excited to kill this guy.
But Rowan said no.
At that point, I feel like he did not want to do it for the game.
The game was not in his mind at that point.
He was like, okay, this guy violated the person that I like and so he's got to go.
(13:41):
Yeah.
That is exactly what it was.
It no longer became...
It was no longer the game.
Sloane was still trying to play the game.
Yeah, that was all that was on her mind.
Yeah.
And so she's arguing with him.
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I discovered him first.
This is my kill.
You can't have it.
And then he...
That growly protective side of every man in every smut book comes out and he's like, no.
And he goes after old dude.
Drags him out of the truck.
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Enraged.
And rage.
He seen red.
He definitely just...
It's like...
It was like a bear.
Yes.
It was like a...
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I hate to compare him to, you know, a woman, but it was like a mama bear taking down something.
And so much so, it scared the shit out of Sloane.
Like how crazy that would scare her.
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Imagine all of the things that she's done and that scares her.
Right.
I mean, just like four chapters ago, she's got a man strapped to her table while she's
cutting him open with a scalpel and plucking his eyeballs out.
Yeah.
And for the record, that's Sloane's MO is she plucks people's eyes out and forms webs
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out of pieces of their flesh.
Hence orb weaver.
Yes.
But this...
This scared her.
Because it...
For like the first time they clicked in her head, like...
I may be a serial killer, but I am out here in the middle of the woods with two serial
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killers.
And one of them in fact, who is raging on that guy over there who's already dead.
Like dude's gone and Rowan is still just going after it.
And she gets ready, you know, she tucks, tells and runs and...
But before she can really go anywhere, Rowan calls out her name in the most like broken
(16:18):
voice ever.
And it just stops her in her tracks.
We get to see this moment from both perspectives.
So we see where she's got this train of thought that I'm out here with a serial killer.
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I need to leave.
Like he's raging, what if that turns on me?
Because they still don't know each other that well.
All they have is, you know, some random texting.
But then it switches to him and his fear that he did scare her away because he is so madly
(17:02):
in love with her.
I mean, it was love at first sight and he doesn't want to lose her.
He's afraid that what he just did drove her away.
But then that stops her.
She comes back, she takes care of him a little bit.
He holds on to her, refuses to let go.
You know, the whole romance thing.
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Like the moment that gets to everybody.
This is when we start to see a little more intimacy between the two of them.
They start texting a lot more, start actually flirting and talking, having real conversations
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and not just about who they want to murder.
Yes.
Talking about themselves.
Yes.
So this is kind of a fast paced book.
It time jumps quite a bit.
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So we see a little more of like relationship building between the two of them before we
get to next year's kill.
Which has to be one of my favorites just because of the situation.
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It's too funny.
This is what the trigger warnings were all about.
So we are now going to talk about some of the triggers.
And to be clear, I'm just going to pull them up and read them because there's a lot.
(18:55):
Yes, this book did come with tons of trigger warnings.
A lot.
So we have eyeballs and eye sockets being ripped out, amateur surgery, skin ornaments,
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chainsaw, axes, knives, scalpels, and a lot of other sharp objects, accidental cannibalism,
not so accidental cannibalism, questionable use of mummified corpse, lobotomized manservant,
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ill-advised use of kitchen implements.
I'm sorry about the cookies and cream ice cream.
I'm not really.
And you guys are soon going to find out what this means and we're all going to regret
it.
Detailed sex scenes, which of course is a smut book.
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But to be warned, it is rather rough.
Daddy YouTube does not like these type of words, so I cannot say them, which means that
they also will not be that deeply talked about.
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But it does get spicy.
And if you like to read about the rough spiciness, it's a great book, although it's a slow burn.
Which as a new person reading Smut, first I realized that slow burns are not for me.
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And second, I was not expecting the scenes to be detailed like they were.
So if anybody is new to it, I just want to put that warning out there to get ready because
it is detailed.
This was Ali's first like real smut read, like spicy smut.
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And although it is a slow burn, it is so worth the wait.
It was.
It is.
But it drove me crazy.
I just wanted them to hurry up and be.
I mean, that's all anybody wants.
OK, but back to trigger warnings.
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Also the spice does get very rough.
It is very dom and sub.
There are other things, objects that come into play.
For anybody that is interested in this or looks for new tropes or anything, this book
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does also have praise kings.
So keep that in mind.
And then there's also references to parental neglect and child abuse.
Parent loss, not depicted, but it is talked about.
So it doesn't actually happen during the storyline, but it is mentioned during the story.
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References to child essay.
It is not depicted, but it is talked about and it's not.
Is young is what people would think when they hear that.
Still not OK, obviously.
It was high school.
(22:50):
Yeah, wasn't it?
Yes.
Think high school boarding school.
It's a book about serial killers.
So be prepared for some gruesome stuff, but the worst part is, in fact, the ice cream.
And we are going to get into that because not pleasant.
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One of the most ironic and just funny scenes to me.
She slid the scene in there just so seamlessly.
It was like.
What?
OK, but.
So starting back at where we were.
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They are sent to California this time.
Up in the woods of California.
Too fine.
This guy and there it starts out, you know, they met at the hotel or whatever.
And then Sloan ditches Rowan because this is a competition.
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So she ditches him.
And goes to a place where she knows that the serial killer is going to be.
His name is Thorsten.
Rowan finds her at this restaurant.
He claims that he was driving by and saw his friend's car parked out front, but.
(24:23):
I really wonder if he had her tracked.
Like if he like put a tracking device on her, because how did he find her in this big city
when she ditched him?
Unless he followed her.
But he waited quite a while before joining them.
Either way, neither one would surprise me, whether it be a tracker or he followed her.
Fair enough.
(24:44):
But he kind of crashes there this little dinner date that she's got going on with Thorsten.
Thorsten invites them to a dinner at both of their houses or at his house, which is
like this big mansion type thing.
(25:04):
And they both show up.
And they sit down to have dinner and he starts out with wine and you know, appetizers and
soups and he keeps supplying the wine at one point specifically.
And if you know, you know, Chianti is brought out.
(25:32):
A nice Chianti.
Let that sink in for some of you.
If you know, you know.
But Rowan, he is plying them with alcohol trying to get them drunk and Rowan succeeds
in getting drunk.
Sloan allows herself to get a little buzzed so as not to tip off Thorsten.
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But Rowan is drunk.
He is sloshed just out of it.
Starts confessing his heart to Sloan.
He is so gone.
And while all this is happening, meals are being brought in and out by the manservant
who has clearly received some type of botched brain surgery.
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He just doesn't seem to be all there.
And by knowing who Thorsten is, we know that it definitely did not happen naturally or
in an actual medical lab.
It was intentional.
So he's pretty much just a subservient man who has no say in what he does.
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And then he brings out the final course to pair with this Chianti.
Sloan is trying to give Rowan the eye as the food is being placed in front of him like,
(27:11):
stop it.
And he's just not, he's too far gone.
And he's too preoccupied with confessing his love that he's just not getting the hint.
And it was, what was it?
(27:35):
It was some kind of rump roast salad with a Dijon mustard or Dijon dressing.
And he compliments Thorsten on this Dijon dressing for the salad.
And Thorsten says, I made it special for you.
(27:56):
Meanwhile, Sloan is gagging.
Because it has not touched it either.
Yeah.
Because she knows.
She knows.
She knows.
It is not beef.
It is not pork.
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It's not chicken or turkey or fish.
It is a different kind of flesh.
The forbidden flesh.
Old dudes eating on some straight up human, like human rump roast.
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Ass.
Okay.
Just chowing down on it too, mind you.
He's not like just nibbling at it.
He's like stuffing that crap in there.
It's like when you get drunk and you need to go to Waffle House.
That was him, but on human rump roast.
(29:05):
Yeah.
He just, he needed it the way that most of us would, you know, prefer waffles.
He seemed to prefer this.
Granted, he didn't know.
But he said it tasted good.
Yeah.
And he's a chef.
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So you would think that he would be able to taste the difference, but I guess he was just
too far drunk.
It was the drunk taste buds.
It had to be.
But he's getting after it.
And then he starts saying something and then he just plops faceplants right in this salad.
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And ass flesh all in the face with a piece of it still hanging out of his mouth.
Not great.
And then Sloane looks at, you know, Thorsten and she's like, and then there were two.
And that makes her happy because she knows she's won this time.
(30:10):
This one was hers.
And then it cuts the scene to Rowan waking up.
What a horrible way to wake up, might I add.
Awful, awful way.
So at this point is whenever Rowan is waking up, and keep in mind he still has the rump
(30:37):
roast piece in his mouth.
So when he wakes up, Sloane is having to get it out of his mouth so he's not choking.
She then explains to him, she's also plucking the eyeballs out of Thorsten as well as he's
waking up.
Thorsten's alive.
Thorsten is still alive while she's still alive.
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Plucking them out.
So he's feeling and hearing everything that's going on around him.
She explains to Rowan that the Dijon dressing was actually sedative.
That is why he passed out.
So she then kind of explains to Rowan, and I guess Thorsten as well, since he's still
(31:24):
alive at this point.
He's along for the journey.
Yeah.
The webs that she weaves with the string and flesh is actually kind of like a map that
leads to her victims' victims.
So the serial killers that she is taking out, she's basically leaving a map to show everybody
(31:48):
like hey, these are where their victims are.
His victims, not her victims.
Right.
The victim of her.
Her victims' victims.
The man whose flesh is strung up behind him.
Yes.
The dead guy.
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And so after that, Slom then tells Rowan what he consumed.
In quotes, human flesh, straight up ass.
She gives Rowan a bucket and he throws up into it, which is totally called for because I'm
afraid I would have as well.
(32:30):
I definitely would have.
I think it's also worth mentioning that Thorsten was a bad guy.
Yes.
He wasn't just a serial killer, but he preyed on weak, vulnerable people.
He would lure them in with the thought of protection and a roof.
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He would take them in, but then he would and then eat them.
He was a serial cannibal.
Very Hannibal Lecter.
Very Jeffrey Dahmer.
It's unpleasant.
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So after he loses his dinner, they look over and they see the servant that has had botched
brain surgery chowing down on some mint chocolate chip ice cream.
Just going at it.
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Slom decides to read the ingredients.
I apologize to anybody who has to hear this come out of Allie's mouth because you may
never look at ice cream the same again.
It took me weeks to be able to eat ice cream again.
She reads the ingredients to him.
(33:57):
Obviously she is doing this in a menacing way.
His stomach is still in turmoil over what was just disclosed to him that he ate.
So I feel like she is doing this to make it worse for him.
For sure.
She's definitely a sadist.
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She totally did not have to do this to him.
She starts reading it to him and he tells her he does not want to know what's in the ice
cream.
He's begging.
He's begging her.
Please do not let me know what's in this ice cream.
(34:41):
She starts out cream and as she's naming these ingredients off Rowan is steadily begging.
Please stop.
Please don't.
Please don't read the rest.
So it's cream, sugar, and then she gets this really devious grin on her face.
(35:06):
She's about to read this next ingredient.
She glares her throat and she proceeds to say semen milked April 10th to April 13th.
She then makes a little joke, a little wisecrack how that's an interesting substitute to salt
(35:31):
in the ice cream.
And this is why cookies and cream ice cream is going to be ruined for some people.
The scene is just when you just read about a man eating flesh and then it goes to a scene
(35:53):
of a lobotomized man eating this kind of ice cream and just inhaling it.
Your stomach just kind of turns a little.
It took me weeks.
Everyone's stomach, the readers in Rowan.
(36:15):
But it did not.
The only person whose stomach didn't turn was Sloane because she thought it was pretty
hilarious.
She didn't eat it.
She didn't eat any of it.
She knew.
She knew better.
It was, yeah.
And thusforth, you now know why cookies and cream ice cream is listed in the trigger and
(36:41):
content warnings.
I can never look at it the same.
And that was my favorite ice cream.
It couldn't have been something like gross that nobody eats.
Literally.
It had to be something good.
Couldn't have been like the bubblegum ice cream, an ice cream that nobody eats.
(37:01):
It had to be cookies and cream.
Brynn Weaver did that on purpose.
100%.
For sure.
I feel like she, this is kind of foreshadowing, but she ruins a lot of food and I feel like
she does it on purpose.
Yeah.
The author, not the main character.
(37:23):
Yeah.
Because if you read her other books, there is also food in the content warnings.
It's definitely a favorite of hers.
Some people focus on the spicy scenes or focus on the theme.
(37:45):
She's like, I'm going to add some food in here and I'm going to ruin everybody's favorite
foods because it's not just little things that nobody really eats.
It's like staples in people's homes.
Yeah.
I bet she does it all on purpose too.
(38:07):
I bet she hopes that whoever is reading is eating whatever she's talking about in the
moment.
So they just kind of look at it and they're like, hmm.
Because it's the most common ice cream.
So anybody could really be eating it during this time.
Yeah.
And then the other foods that she ruins are also the most common foods that people eat.
(38:29):
So typical.
Such popular.
If you're having a party, this one type of food is what you're going to be getting to
supply a whole group of people.
It's definitely intentional.
That's for sure.
Yeah.
(38:50):
That's it.
This round goes to Sloane.
She wins this one and Rowan loses in more ways than one.
He lost in all the ways.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
Poor guy.
(39:10):
I don't know what he did to deserve that.
I know after he protected her and everything, he got the short end of that stick completely.
She tried to warn him, but he was too eager to drink that wine.
(39:32):
It also gets mentioned in this scene.
He says that he doesn't remember anything, but in his inner dialogue, it's clear that
he does remember confessing his love to her.
Yes.
But he could tell that when she asked, so you do you remember anything that happened?
(39:56):
He could tell that she was like holding her breath and he took that as a he shouldn't
have said what he said.
So he pretends to not remember saying any of it.
And there is like from what he perceives to be a sigh of relief on her face, which is
(40:17):
a smug book.
We all know that's not the case.
I hate when main characters just assume what the other person is thinking instead of talking.
Yes.
But granted, is that really far off from real life?
Not at all.
(40:38):
I mean, because I can say myself, I sometimes assume before I ask.
So, I mean, how many times have you thought that somebody felt a certain way and then
came out later that that was not the case at all?
You were completely wrong.
(40:59):
That often.
It's fair.
Maybe that is a lesson to all of us that we should communicate better.
Yes.
You should talk about things.
Don't keep things held in and assume.
It's a saying my dad used to say, when you assume you make an ass out of you and me.
(41:23):
I like that.
But to move on from the Destiny and Ally therapy session.
After this one, we see Rowan going back to Boston where he decides to open up or where
(41:48):
he had decided to open up a new restaurant because he already owned one because he's
a professional chef.
But he's opening a new one called Butcher and Blackbird.
Blackbird is the nickname that he gave Sloane.
It's like a personal thing between the two of them.
Nobody else calls her that.
Just him.
At this point, they've gotten very serious.
(42:11):
Yes, a lot more intimacy.
We still have not reached the most important thing in a smart book, but we are getting
closer.
I promise.
But he decides to open a restaurant and name it Aftername it Butcher and Blackbird for
(42:33):
him and her.
And then forgot to mention when they left Thorsten's, Sloane demanded that Rowan take
David, the lobotomized man, back with him to Boston because she didn't have the heart
(42:54):
to leave a not all there man to be left on his own.
So she demanded that Rowan take him.
Like just...
Yeah, especially when it wasn't his fault he was the way he was.
He didn't ask to be lobotomized.
And it kind of draws some tension between the two of them because now it's almost like
(43:21):
they've got a kid.
Yes, David's essentially a child.
He's got a child mentality.
Obviously, he was eating some very questionable cookies and cream ice cream.
Anybody in their right mind would not have picked up that ice cream.
Yeah.
Taken a bite out of it.
(43:41):
Well he didn't have his right mind.
That was taken away from him.
Exactly.
Sorry, lobotomies are not funny.
Sorry.
No, not at all.
We're not laughing at that.
We're laughing at the ice cream.
Ice cream.
The ice cream.
But David starts to, you know, put a little tension on this very new relationship because
(44:05):
they had just reached this honeymoon phase and now essentially they have a kid between
the two of them.
So Sloan moves to Boston to be closer to Rowan.
They haven't made anything official yet, but they are starting to get a lot closer in their
relationship with each other.
(44:28):
But there are still some looming insecurities within Sloan that, you know, he may not really
want her, that he's just, you know, keeping her around because they have a hobby in common.
Yeah.
But she's more of just a friend that he can vent to and relate to than something more.
(44:51):
And that's her fear.
Those are her insecurities.
I mean, we've all been there.
But-
Which I would, I kind of understand the insecurity.
It's understandable.
I mean, there's got to be something, you know.
You meet, you're a serial killer and you meet another serial killer.
Like how often does that really happen?
(45:14):
It makes you wonder.
I can see why she is concerned with that.
But it doesn't help when he invites her to a gala, gives her a dress.
You know, it's a big swanky event and she's all excited to go to this thing and just feel
(45:34):
beautiful and feel wanted and then they get there and not long into the gala, maybe an
hour or two, he turns it into, hey, let's indulge in our hobby.
There's a guy here that I'd really like to take to, you know, the playroom.
(45:58):
And it just kind of shatters her because it was like he confirmed her fear that she was
only around for his hobby.
And not because he was actually interested in being with her.
So she just kind of dips out.
She's like, yeah, I'm not going to stick around for this.
(46:22):
And he got called away because there was a fire at his first restaurant, his original
restaurant.
So he doesn't have time, nor would he even think about it because he's a man.
But to realize that her entire demeanor changes, her facial features change, she's not into
(46:45):
the evening anymore.
And because he doesn't notice this and just runs along, it all just culminates and confirms
her fear that she already had to begin with.
Now they don't really talk about it until later.
(47:12):
So there's just this looming feeling hanging over her that...
Yeah, because it kind of got swept under the rug.
Yeah.
And then they end up in their next...
Level of their game.
Yeah, I was trying to think of the word.
(47:35):
I felt like next level would kind of go with it.
This one did amp it up a bit.
Yeah.
Again, we go out to, you know, the middle of friggin nowhere.
Of course.
Where we meet a man named Harvey Meade.
In this book...
Very creepy man.
(47:55):
Yes.
In this book, you notice a lot of similarities between real life serial killers.
Well, if Thorsten was Hannibal and that other guy in the beginning was Dexter, or well,
Dexter's victims.
This guy is definitely Bates Motel.
(48:18):
Without the motel.
Norman Bates.
Yes.
Yeah.
He is the psychotic mama's boy.
But the mom is dead.
And she was an overbearing bitch of a woman.
And this is a big dude.
Harvey Meade is described as like this monstrous big guy.
(48:43):
And Sloane is, you know, an average sized woman.
You know.
So Harvey Meade.
This one just goes wrong right away.
He's also like a chainsaw dude.
Very quickly.
Yeah.
And he's like a chainsaw dude.
So he's Norman Bates and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
(49:05):
Yes.
That's exactly what it is.
The two somehow met and had Harvey Meade.
Yes.
And he has a victim in his basement.
And Sloane decides she's not going to wait around for Rowan and his plan because I think
at this point they were going to try to team up and take the guy together.
(49:28):
Yeah.
I think they were going to like split off.
One was going to go one way.
Yeah.
Kind of meet up in the middle.
Yep.
And Rowan was becoming really concerned with where Sloane was because he couldn't find
her.
Sloane was becoming concerned with the girl in the basement and Rowan.
(49:49):
And it just went all to hell.
She ends up getting caught off guard by Harvey Meade.
And he...
They end up in a physical altercation and then he kicks her in the face and she falls
into the basement with the other victim.
(50:15):
And Rowan seems to see part of this altercation on...
Was it a video screen?
He saw it somewhere.
He either saw it like down the hall or there was like a security feed set up somewhere
that he saw it on.
I don't quite remember.
I'm pretty sure it was the security system.
(50:35):
I think so too.
But he sees this and he panics and so then he ends up going after Harvey.
Not rationally thinking.
And that doesn't go well either.
But he ends up finding Sloane and pulls her up from the basement while the other girl
(50:56):
screams, don't leave me, don't leave me.
He literally tells her to just shut the... up.
He was not having that girl.
You are going to mess up what we are about to do.
You can hold on.
You've survived this long.
We're gonna get rid of him.
Don't worry, we'll be back.
But he does not say it nicely.
(51:17):
He's just straight up like, shut up.
And then they disappear and they leave the girl in the basement chained up, freaking
out.
Well, this is where things get interesting because they do end up getting the drop on
Harvey.
And they find Mama Meade's bones.
(51:41):
Straight Norman Bates style.
I mean, she's still in her clothes.
She still has her dentures in.
And she's sitting in a rocking chair.
And mind you, the whole house is very... what you would expect from this whole situation.
I mean, it's gross.
It's old.
It's prehistoric.
(52:02):
It's antique.
And there's this old lady sitting in this old chair with doilies everywhere.
And she's just bones, still dressed in her little gown.
And I laughed during this whole scene.
This whole part that I'm about to say, I could not stop laughing.
(52:24):
And if you listen to the audiobook, it is so much more funny than what you would get
if you were just reading it in your head because her acting in this scene was top tier.
So Sloane gets the bright idea because she's mad.
(52:45):
She is like on fire that this dude hit her and kicked her in the face and she is ticked
off.
So she decides to torture him psychologically because she knows that the mother was like
an overbearing bitch of a woman.
(53:07):
And Harvey is on the ground and she lays Mama Mead's bones on top of him and starts talking
in a creepy voice, like an old lady voice.
And starts talking to him through Mama Mead's bones about how bad of a boy he's been.
(53:32):
And Harvey, with his psychological issues, thinks that Mama Mead is back from the dead.
And he's turned back for him.
Yeah.
And he starts panicking and Sloane ramps it up and she's doing this just to torture him.
Like she wants to psychologically mess him up before she physically messes him up.
(53:55):
Like this is fun for her.
Yeah.
Before she gets to work.
She is enjoying the hell out of it.
Yeah.
Yes.
It's like her foreplay.
It's weird.
But she sadly does not get that chance because he dies of a heart attack right then and there.
(54:18):
And this woman tries to bring him back so she can kill him the right way.
Yeah.
And she is mad and she is CPR and the life back into him and it's just not taking.
And Rowan's like, stop, please stop.
(54:38):
This is getting weird.
This is, he's dead.
You've taken it too far.
Yeah.
Like you can't, you've already killed him.
You can't bring him back and kill him the way that you originally wanted to.
And she's mad about it.
She throws a whole hissy fit about it.
And I loved that scene.
(55:00):
It was pretty funny.
It was just, this whole book, it's so dark.
So so dark.
Because it's nothing but about serial killers and predators and cannibalism and eating semen
and it's so dark.
But somehow this author manages to make it so hilarious throughout this whole book.
(55:26):
These awful scenes that should make you want to like throw up, gag, stop reading.
She makes them comical.
I also think that the voice actors are kind of what make the book.
The voice actors were absolutely terrific.
(55:48):
Most of anybody who listens to Smut on audiobooks knows Joe Arden and knows that he can do any
accent.
Something we forgot to mention was that Rowan is Irish.
Yes.
And whenever I first thought, when I was trying to decide between the Kindle and the Audible,
(56:10):
I was like, I can't do the voice.
So there's no way.
Like, I'm not going to find the Lucky Charms man attractive.
Yeah.
But then I saw it was Joe Arden.
And those of us who listen to audio Smut books knows who Joe Arden is and somehow the Lucky
(56:34):
Charms man became...
There's no words.
I never thought that accent could be sexy.
But he made it happen.
He made it happen.
But all that is to say, I'm getting off track because that man, I don't even know what he
(56:57):
looks like.
I just like listening to his voice.
His voice.
Yeah.
I know his voice in all languages.
But the actors make these dark moments so hilarious.
They make it to where that you can actually get through the scene without feeling tremendous
(57:23):
discomfort.
Yeah.
For instance, this scene that should have been like, oh my God, Norman Bates, Ed Gein,
this is disturbing, ended up making me laugh throughout the whole scene.
I mean, granted, I laughed during horror movies, but...
(57:43):
She somehow found a way to make such a messed up individual and messed up scene be lighthearted.
Exactly.
And that's good writing and good voice acting.
It was great all the way around.
But we now have the matter of the fact that Sloane was just beaten up by this mountain
(58:10):
of a man.
She does not feel great.
She has a literal boot mark on her face.
Blastered on there.
I mean, you can actually see, what was it?
Carhartt?
I think it was a Carhartt boot.
You could read Carhartt on her face from how hard that boot hit her.
(58:36):
So Rowan decides to take her to his brother, who is in fact a doctor.
Fjoln is a doctor.
You will learn that Rowan, his brother Fjoln, and his other brother helped me out here.
Oh my gosh.
(59:00):
We just read the book!
Just read Leather and Light.
How can we forget?
Oh my gosh.
I have to look it up?
I think you are because I'm sitting here racking my brain and it's not coming up.
Lachlan.
(59:20):
Lachlan.
Lachlan.
Yes.
Lachlan.
Rowan, our main male character, Fjoln, his younger brother, and then Lachlan, his other
brother.
Lachlan is the one that sends them the names of the serial killers to go find.
Not a serial killer, just very well connected.
(59:42):
And then Fjoln happens to be a doctor.
So you've got a serial killer, a very underworld connected dude, and then you have a doctor.
Strange family they've got here, okay?
But it's their family nonetheless.
We are all a little knowledgeable with some dysfunctional family issues, so to each their
(01:00:07):
own.
But Rowan decides to take Sjoln to Fjoln to have her looked at and examined because she
refused to go to a hospital and have to explain how this happened.
Yeah, that'd be a hard way to- hard thing to explain.
But when they show up, Fjoln is not there.
(01:00:30):
Who is there is a ex-circus performer named Rose and she is crazy as shit, okay?
Insane.
Just a nut of a woman.
And she threatens Rowan because she thinks that Rowan is the one who did all of that
(01:00:56):
to Sjoln.
And she is mad.
Rose is like, did you hit her?
And you don't have to lie for him.
And they're trying to explain it, but she was not having it.
She was dead set on the fact that everything they said was an excuse and that Rowan beat
Sjoln.
Not the case.
(01:01:19):
But eventually, I don't know why he doesn't say it from the start, but eventually Rowan
says that he is Fjoln's brother.
Yeah, that should have been the first thing he said.
You would think, but men are a little on the slow side, so we'll let it slide.
But Rose calls Fjoln to corroborate the story.
(01:01:48):
And the way in which Fjoln demands that Rowan prove he is who he says he is, because this
whole family is skeptical, but he was also just wanting to have a little fun.
He demands that Rowan say out loud to everybody in the room what his childhood nickname was
and Rowan refuses.
He would rather get gutted by the ex-circus chick than admit his childhood nickname.
(01:02:16):
And God bless him, I understand why.
Eventually, he does say it because Sloane gives him the puppy dog eyes and is like,
I'd really like to get my situation taken care of.
Could you please for me just please say your childhood nickname?
(01:02:36):
And so he divulges that his childhood nickname was Shitflicker.
I still don't remember if they even say where this nickname came from.
I don't think they fully went into the meaning behind the nickname.
(01:03:01):
If they did and we missed it, leave it in the comments, because I would like to know
where this came from.
I don't remember, but I do remember laughing so hard when the scene described his embarrassment
and the way that Joe Arden says it in this Irish accent, in this embarrassed Irish accent.
(01:03:24):
It's phenomenal.
It is just so funny.
But he gives this, you know, safe word, so to speak, and later on, Fiona shows up, he
dresses her wounds, whatever have you.
And then Sloane goes to bed and Rose kind of gives Rowan a kick in the butt.
(01:03:57):
You know, she's that weird character that pops up out of nowhere that gives like that
wise wisdom.
And she's like, well, what do you have to lose?
There is a girl in there who clearly wants you.
And if you don't take your chance, you're gonna miss it.
(01:04:20):
So that's what he does.
He takes his chance and he storms in there and we finally have liftoff people.
This is the moment we were all waiting for.
And man, was it good.
This scene, this spicy scene, last, how many pages was it?
(01:04:46):
Probably about four or five.
A good four or five pages of nothing but this.
I mean, there's like maybe half a page where he falls asleep.
And we all know that specific sleep scene where it does not the appendage does not get
taken away from her while they go to sleep.
It just stays there, which I don't know how is anatomically possible, but it did apparently
(01:05:11):
happens in these books.
But it is a terrific scene.
There are.
There are toys.
There is this spot and this spot.
And mind you, at first, he's trying to be gentle because she did just, you know, have
(01:05:35):
the life beat out of her.
But she's ready for a different kind of beating.
And she demands it and she gets it.
Yes.
And I really wish I could go into more detail on YouTube, but I don't think we can.
No, not not the detail that they went into.
(01:05:56):
Yeah.
Yeah.
But let's just say it was definitely worth the wait.
It was a great scene.
Ali is a New Times Smut reader.
I am an avid dark romance girlie.
And we can both agree that this was a great scene.
(01:06:18):
Yes, 100 percent.
So that's where we're at is we've gotten the nice spicy scene out of the way.
So what happens next after their spicy scene?
(01:06:43):
Rowan invites Sloane Lark and Lachlan to dinner at his restaurant.
Oh my gosh, my mind went blank.
Three and Butcher and Blackbird.
It's the grand opening of Butcher and Blackbird, isn't it?
He hasn't shown her Butcher and Blackbird yet, has he?
I thought that's what the whole dinner at the booth was about, because he put the wings
(01:07:08):
there, right?
No, the wings, they take him.
They go to dinner at his other restaurant.
And then at the end of the dinner, he tells her he has something to show her.
Oh, OK.
I see.
I'm getting my timeline a little.
(01:07:29):
But what is the restaurant's name?
My mind went blank.
Three and Coach.
Three and Coach.
OK, so they're at Three and Coach.
He is concerned because Sloane has not shown up yet.
He thinks that she might be getting cold feet, isn't going to show.
Well, eventually she does.
They all sit down and eat.
He's happy to see her show up.
(01:07:51):
And after the dinner, he proceeds to let her know that he has something to show her.
He hasn't a surprise for her.
I also want to mention that at Three and Coach, he actually had a booth that was permanently
reserved for her.
Yes, it had her name on it.
So if at any time she walked in and decided to come see it or come eat there, she had
(01:08:17):
a permanent booth that was perfectly set to where she could see all of the exits, which
for her PTSD driven mind because of assaults that happened at the boarding school.
Yes.
It's like the perfect booth.
It was so thoughtful.
Not only did he permanently reserve this booth, but he picked the perfect one for her and
(01:08:42):
her PTSD and her serial killer mind.
So I thought that was really sweet.
Like he knew her so well.
He knew exactly where she would want to sit in a restaurant.
Exactly.
Men can be great sometimes.
Yeah, they can sometimes.
(01:09:03):
So he makes her cover her eyes.
He does not want her to see where they're going or what she's going to see when they
get there.
A couple blocks go by.
They walk for a couple blocks and then he opens her eyes and she looks and it's this
(01:09:24):
beautiful brick building with the words butchering blackbird on it.
He is showing her that he is opening a restaurant based off of them, essentially.
So he brings her in and he's showing her around while he takes her to one particular booth
(01:09:50):
and she looks above it and there are very intricate black feathers hanging over this
booth.
Blackbird.
Yes.
So this is her booth at their restaurant pretty much.
(01:10:10):
And so obviously, you know, she swooned over that.
As we all did.
Yes.
So she sees this and he leaves to go to the back to go to the kitchen.
And he comes back with a tray of food.
(01:10:35):
And so it's just ingredients.
It's not all of the food.
It's like they're going to make this together.
So they start making the food and then things start getting a little intense.
And then we get another spicy scene.
And keep in mind, this is in front of an open window at this restaurant.
(01:11:03):
They are on this booth on the table at this booth where they are pretty much showcased.
Just getting after it.
And she has a thought about the window and how anybody walking by could just see it.
And then per usual, the thought just quickly flees from her mind.
(01:11:28):
And she's just enveloped in the moment.
And he very obviously does not care at all.
Like I feel like at this point, he has the mindset, this is my woman and I'm going to
let everybody know this is my woman.
And that in a way is him letting everybody know that's his woman.
Staking his claim as we all love and smut.
(01:11:53):
Yes.
But.
What?
I was just going to comment on the scene.
I was going to say, so like I said, once it starts, it doesn't stop.
Yeah.
(01:12:13):
Once she wrote that first spicy scene, it just torpedoes.
It does not stop.
And all good things must come to an end.
But I also think at this point, isn't this the first time that Sloane tells Rowan she
loves him?
(01:12:34):
Yes.
At this restaurant and the spicy scene.
She lets him know how she feels finally.
Everything kind of clicks into place.
Yes.
He has his old restaurant that's doing well.
He's got his new restaurant that is soon to open.
(01:12:56):
They are finally connecting on a better level because prior to this, they were having some
strain in the relationship because she worried he was going to get tired of her and realized
that really all they had in common was their hobby.
Killing.
Yeah.
And this kind of puts all those thoughts out of her head.
(01:13:19):
She realizes how invested he is into this relationship and they both finally just admit
how they truly feel.
Yeah.
And as any book would have it, things go downhill.
(01:13:42):
Quickly.
Very quickly.
So we have another part where they are in a good place, but at the same time Rowan has
been acting kind of strange.
Again, this book has a lot of time jumps.
(01:14:03):
So we're kind of moving forward and Rowan's acting kind of weird and Sloane is really
confused by this behavior.
And he gives her a key to the restaurant and is like, I want you to come by later.
You know, we'll talk about some stuff and then I've got some errands to run.
(01:14:23):
I want you to go with me.
Well Rowan goes to the restaurant and when he gets there, David is there.
Now this is like closing time.
One of the cooks was supposed to have taken David home.
Remember David is the lobotomy guy that they brought home as like a child.
(01:14:51):
But he's there and it's presumed that one of the cooks forgot David and didn't take
him home after closing so he's just been sitting there.
But then we find out David is not who he seems.
David is not a lobotomized victim and he is not incoherent.
(01:15:14):
He has no mental struggles at all as we come to learn.
He is actually a serial killer in his own right and went to Thorsten's to pose as a
servant because he knew that there were a couple of serial killers that were going after
serial killers and knew it was a matter of time before he was found and so he decided
(01:15:40):
to hide himself in plain sight.
That's what he did.
And then when they brought him home, he waited for the right moment to just pop out and say
hey guys, guess what?
I actually know what's going on.
(01:16:01):
I am not incompetent.
I am very competent.
Well, needless to say, he as a serial killer wants to take out these two serial killers
and he has an infatuation with Sloane.
Like a deep, unrequited, strange attraction to Sloane.
(01:16:28):
He wants her but he doesn't just want her in the spicy ways that we talk about, he also
wants to torture her and kill her because that is what gets him going.
Well, Sloane shows up like she was supposed to and in order to protect her, as these books
(01:16:53):
would have it, Rowan says awful, hurtful things to make her leave and mind you, she's been
staying at his place for a while now.
Like they've really been together.
They're serious.
Serious at this point.
(01:17:13):
It's a relationship.
And Rowan says these awful things and chases her away and pushes her away to protect her
from David who is hiding just around the corner.
Well, Sloane goes back to the apartment and she does what any woman would do.
(01:17:37):
She breaks down and cries and she calls her best friend and she events to her best friend
and their best friend's like, that does not sound like him but okay.
And then she goes, you know, the whole best friend row like, you can do better, come back
home, we'll work this out, great best friend, you know?
(01:17:59):
But then Sloane remembers she has a secret camera in the kitchen at the restaurant.
And she realizes this by the way, like an hour later.
It's not like this was 10 minutes later.
She finally thinks about how odd his behavior was and decides, oh yeah, I have a camera.
(01:18:24):
I can go look to see what's going on.
I'm afraid I would have instantly checked the camera as soon as I left the restaurant.
I would have instantly checked the camera just to see his reaction when I left to see
what he did.
Because in a normal girl's mind, we're all going to jump to there's another woman.
I would have been checking that so fast.
(01:18:48):
100%.
Had she had done that, she could have spared some unpleasantness for Rowan because when
she does check it, Rowan is strapped to a chair with his wrists facing up and David
is torturing him.
(01:19:11):
And cutting away pieces of flesh and doing all kinds of bizarre things to Rowan.
So Sloane, after finally an hour later checking this, she rushes to the restaurant.
And she confronts David, but not as an enemy.
(01:19:35):
She plays on his feelings for her.
And also in turn, kind of gets to slap Rowan back across the face metaphorically for the
things that he said to her because she turns around and says some horrible things about
him.
One of which being that anybody can spew poetics while in the middle of doing it.
(01:20:06):
Which stung him because he did in fact come up with some pretty spicy poetry in the middle
of them doing it.
It was very special to them.
It was very important to the scene.
It was him pouring his heart out as he drilled into her.
(01:20:29):
And so she says some things to hurt him, but also to play into this part that she is on
David's side and that they can go serial killing together.
And David's skeptical at first because he's not a complete idiot.
(01:20:52):
But then she hands him the gun that she stole from him when his back was turned.
She gives it back to him.
So he's starting to kind of let his guard down, but as soon as he takes the gun from
her, she pulls out a knife that she had behind her and she cuts him across the hand.
(01:21:16):
I think it was the wrist.
She like, yeah, I think she slashed his wrist.
Yeah.
They were doing the handoff and when he stretched out his hand, she slashed his wrist.
He came at her and she cut him again.
And then I remember correctly, he falls to his knees and as he does, she has the knife
(01:21:41):
waiting there at like mid levels so that when he falls, the knife immediately plunges through
this little part of the neck and goes up straight through his mouth and into his brain.
And that is David.
David is dead.
(01:22:04):
And the attack is finished, but she's still mad at Rowan for the things that he said to
her to push her away because he said all the things that, you know, of course she was already
worried about.
He even told her that she needed to leave and go back home and that he didn't want her
there.
And so she's even though, even though he's strapped to a chair bleeding out, she's still
(01:22:28):
mad at him because only a serial killer could be that calm in that moment.
But she's still mad at him.
She decides to unstrap him and you know, they get him medical attention and then we time
jump again.
(01:22:51):
And this time we are at the next one of their kills.
And it's done in Sloane's fashion, which is she kills him, but she plucks out their eyeballs
and makes the web behind them.
Rowan decides to put a note in the eye socket of said dead guy.
(01:23:20):
And he baits her into checking her work again because she's very particular about how nice
and neat the eyes must be plucked.
Yes, they must be perfect.
Yes, they cannot look gougy in their words.
And so she goes to check again, she pulls out the note and he is asking her in the note
(01:23:48):
to marry him.
And so they do.
In a romantic way.
It worked for them.
But she accepts, they go and they have an impromptu wedding on the beach.
And then in the very last chapter, the very last scene, we get a kind of foreshadowing
(01:24:13):
for the next book, which the next book is about leather and it's called Leather and
Lark.
It's about Lark, Sloane's best friend, and Lachlan, Rowan's brother, the one that is
very connected.
But we get kind of a foreshadowing for this book at the end of Butcher and Blackbird.
(01:24:38):
Because an unnamed sibling of one of Rowan's victims kind of pops up out of nowhere and
we see that he's going to want revenge and he is plotting and watching them because he
is going to take down the person who murdered his brother.
(01:25:00):
And this sets us up for the next book, Leather and Lark, which is also a great read by Bran
Weaver.
But again, you will have food ruined for you.
Because that's what she likes to do.
Overall, this book was great.
(01:25:23):
In my opinion, it was absolutely fantastic.
The writing was good.
The plot was good.
The spicy scenes were exceptional.
Everybody that could write three chapters of spice, like consecutively, and not come
up with the same way twice.
(01:25:44):
You got to give it to them.
That's impressive.
Yeah.
The book was dark.
It was spicy.
It was funny.
Overall, I just loved this book.
It was a very good book.
And if you have a choice between reading it or listening to it on Audible, choose Audible
(01:26:13):
because those voice actors did an amazing job.
Yes, they did.
But I recommend this book as somebody who's read a lot of Smut.
This is one of my favorites.
I can't wait for it to come out.
(01:26:35):
I think it's a TV series.
TV series are a movie.
Y'all let me know.
It's coming out.
It's being made into an actual film.
And we're going to get to watch these characters come to life, which we all know it's going
to get butchered somehow.
It's going to get butchered because the books are-
(01:26:56):
The shows are never as good as the books.
Exactly.
They never keep it on point.
I'm curious if it's going to be like 365 and be an actual Smut book on screen or if they're
just going to take the storyline and leave out all the Smut.
(01:27:21):
Guess we'll find out.
I'm excited for it though.
You can have the storyline and also Smut.
You don't have to make it too Smutty.
So I hope that's what they end up doing.
Yeah.
I mean we wait till the end for it anyways.
So I doubt-
Yeah, once we get there it keeps happening.
(01:27:43):
I doubt everything that is mentioned in those scenes is even able to be put into a film.
That would be like an HBO.
That'd be an HBO film.
Oh yeah.
It's definitely not Netflix.
Like Netflix gets kind of, it's a little scatty there sometimes but HBO, they go all out.
(01:28:06):
They don't care.
Yeah.
And FX.
Yes.
FX is another one that tends to just throw every rule out the door.
They push boundaries.
That is the polite way to say it, yes.
(01:28:27):
That's it.
Yeah.
So that is Butcher and Blackbird by Bryn Weaver.
Great read.
As always, thanks for listening and we will see y'all Thursday on Crime and Passion for
our True Crime Podcast.
Welcome to Crime and Passion, the channel where we deep dive into the dark and thrilling
(00:12):
world of true crime cases.
And also book reviews, mostly focusing on smut.
On Mondays we'll turn up the heat with our candid reviews of the latest in smut, or any
book really.
And Thursdays we'll unravel the mysteries behind some of the most notorious crimes.
So sit back, grab your popcorn or your coffee as we take you on this thrilling journey.
(00:41):
I'm Destinee.
I'm Allison.
And today we are going to talk about Butcher and Blackbird by Brynn Weaver.
So Butcher and Blackbird is a dark romance novel that is about this female serial killer
(01:05):
named Sloane, or her serial killer, Moniker, which is the orb weaver, and Rowan, who is
a serial killer as well, known as the Boston butcher.
The two end up meeting because after one of Sloane's kills, she accidentally gets trapped
(01:27):
by the man that she killed.
It was like his dying moment that he slams a cage door.
Probably worth noting that Sloane only kills other serial killers, or, you know, our words.
I can't say the word.
YouTube doesn't like it.
(01:48):
She kills the bad people who go on doing serial type of things.
So his last dying moment, he slams her in one of his cages that he had used on other
victims.
And that is how Rowan, the butcher, finds her.
Trapped in a cage, starving for days.
(02:11):
By the way, the guy kind of got his last win because he locked her in a cage when he died.
He quite literally got his final laugh.
Yes.
She was in there for so long, though.
She was imagining maggots that were crawling out of his dead body as pasta.
(02:36):
That's when you know that you're hungry.
The pasta, in her words, the pasta was crawling towards her.
That's horrible.
It's not pleasant.
But then comes Rowan, who the moment he finds out who she is, he like fangirls over her.
(03:02):
I mean, he goes nuts.
This guy, this weird guy, who randomly shows up in some other dude's basement, mind you.
We still don't know what he was doing there at this point.
That's true.
We do not.
(03:23):
And then he just starts fangirling and gushing as soon as he finds out that she's the orb
weaver.
I mean, he ends up setting her free and taking her to get food and she...what was it that
they ate?
Was it ribs?
I think it was.
I think it was ribs.
She goes to town on those ribs.
(03:45):
Yes, she demolished them.
But in order for...because Rowan is completely smitten with her.
So in order for him to continue to see her, because he can tell that she's wanting to
bolt away and never return, he comes up with a game.
(04:11):
Because they are both serial killers.
And they come up with a game or a competition where pretty much once a year, his brother,
Rowan's brother, will send them a location and they have to go to this location and find
(04:31):
the serial killer and whoever finds and kills the serial killer wins that round.
Kind of a weird game.
Keep in mind though, the brother is not also a serial killer.
He does not do that.
No, no.
He just finds the person for them.
(04:54):
He's just really well connected.
He just knows where to find serial killers.
So they start this competition because Rowan is instantly infatuated with her and just
can't let her go.
(05:15):
They start and the first time we see one of Sloan's kills is like a very Dexter-style
type of kill.
She's in like a cargo ship like crate.
That's the word I'm looking for.
(05:36):
Container?
Yes.
Cargo container?
Yeah.
Shipping container.
Yeah, shipping container.
That's it.
So she's in this shipping container with some dude strapped down to a table and she's on
the phone with her best friend who, mind you, does know that she is a serial killer.
(05:58):
And they're just having-
And probably also knows what she's doing in the moment.
How could she not?
The dude is screaming.
I mean, he's like screaming bloody murder and she's just carrying along about having
a normal conversation with her best friend about how she's got a crush on this guy while
(06:18):
she has a man strapped to her table naked.
Yeah.
That's all you can really say to that.
I mean, it's so nonchalant.
It's just-
(06:39):
Two brain cells.
One brain cell.
We just happened to share it.
One brain cell, two people.
Yeah.
But I mean, there's really nothing you can say about that.
It's just so...
It was just so normal for her.
Yeah.
(07:00):
Even Lark, her best friend, it was very normal for her too.
Yeah.
They were just carrying on like there wasn't some dude that had just been cut up.
But it gives you a glimpse into Sloane.
It's at that moment you understand she's done this a lot.
(07:24):
Yes.
She's truly a serial-
You know this is not her first time.
Yeah.
She's truly a serial killer.
But eventually, this dude is dead.
She does her disposing of it.
And then time for the competition.
(07:47):
This Dexter style was not part of the competition.
That was just for funsies for her.
Yes.
Just another victim.
But then the time comes.
And they are sent to some backwoods run down in the middle of nowhere.
(08:15):
And they're chatting and they're flirting.
But we start to understand how smart Sloane is.
Because it becomes clear that she knew exactly who the serial killer was.
While Rowan could not get his head out of Sloane's butt.
(08:40):
Keeping him from realizing who the serial killer was.
And then it's divulged to all of us who it was.
So when they get to the inn, they meet the innkeeper.
And he seems kind of, you know, odd.
(09:02):
But I mean, what person in the middle who's running an inn in the middle of nowhere?
What else do you expect?
Yeah.
He's completely isolated.
Yes.
But then we have the bedroom scene.
(09:22):
So Rowan starts hearing some noises.
And him and Sloane have rooms next to each other.
So they have an adjoining wall.
And as any creepy dude would do, he sticks his ear to the wall.
(09:46):
Because he's hearing some very fascinating sounds on the other side of this wall.
Very intriguing noises.
And so he's listening.
And then he starts to hear another sound.
A more manly sound.
(10:11):
And then he decides to pick up a lamp and chunk it through the wall where he hears the
sound coming from, and there happens to be a man inside the wall.
And when he runs away, Rowan sees that there was a peephole into Sloane's room.
(10:33):
There was a man in the wall watching her do some really fun stuff to herself.
And Rowan loses his mind.
He goes nuts.
And that's where you kind of start to see how protective he is of her from an early
on standpoint.
(10:54):
Yeah.
Very protective.
Yes.
The protectiveness that most girlies would swoon for.
Yes.
Automatically.
He just wanted to protect her.
Yes.
Please.
I mean, we're all, anybody who reads these books is obviously in the smut world.
(11:23):
So we all know it's one of those tropes.
Don't touch what's mine.
Anybody who touches her.
This book definitely has that trope.
Yeah.
For sure.
And then when he confronts Sloane to tell her that there was a man watching her through
(11:46):
the walls, it's revealed that the innkeeper was the serial killer that they were going
after.
And Sloane gets excited while Rowan is still pissed off.
Yes.
She does not even care.
Not at all.
(12:06):
She's like, oh, I was being watched.
I knew it was him.
And Rowan's like, what?
She was doing it on purpose.
She had an idea.
She knew exactly who it was and she knew that he would be watching her because she realized
(12:30):
his MO.
She runs off to try to chase him down.
Rowan chases after her.
Meanwhile, old creepy dude who owns the inn has already jumped into his vehicle and sped
away.
Granted, he...
(12:51):
This is where we get into like the fast and the furious moment where Rowan throws himself
at the vehicle and causes it to wreck.
He climbs on the hood, but he does what he has to do.
He feels like he needs to protect Sloane.
(13:15):
Sloane was really excited to kill this guy.
But Rowan said no.
At that point, I feel like he did not want to do it for the game.
The game was not in his mind at that point.
He was like, okay, this guy violated the person that I like and so he's got to go.
(13:41):
Yeah.
That is exactly what it was.
It no longer became...
It was no longer the game.
Sloane was still trying to play the game.
Yeah, that was all that was on her mind.
Yeah.
And so she's arguing with him.
(14:03):
I discovered him first.
This is my kill.
You can't have it.
And then he...
That growly protective side of every man in every smut book comes out and he's like, no.
And he goes after old dude.
Drags him out of the truck.
(14:25):
Enraged.
And rage.
He seen red.
He definitely just...
It's like...
It was like a bear.
Yes.
It was like a...
(14:47):
I hate to compare him to, you know, a woman, but it was like a mama bear taking down something.
And so much so, it scared the shit out of Sloane.
Like how crazy that would scare her.
(15:08):
Imagine all of the things that she's done and that scares her.
Right.
I mean, just like four chapters ago, she's got a man strapped to her table while she's
cutting him open with a scalpel and plucking his eyeballs out.
Yeah.
And for the record, that's Sloane's MO is she plucks people's eyes out and forms webs
(15:30):
out of pieces of their flesh.
Hence orb weaver.
Yes.
But this...
This scared her.
Because it...
For like the first time they clicked in her head, like...
I may be a serial killer, but I am out here in the middle of the woods with two serial
(15:53):
killers.
And one of them in fact, who is raging on that guy over there who's already dead.
Like dude's gone and Rowan is still just going after it.
And she gets ready, you know, she tucks, tells and runs and...
But before she can really go anywhere, Rowan calls out her name in the most like broken
(16:18):
voice ever.
And it just stops her in her tracks.
We get to see this moment from both perspectives.
So we see where she's got this train of thought that I'm out here with a serial killer.
(16:42):
I need to leave.
Like he's raging, what if that turns on me?
Because they still don't know each other that well.
All they have is, you know, some random texting.
But then it switches to him and his fear that he did scare her away because he is so madly
(17:02):
in love with her.
I mean, it was love at first sight and he doesn't want to lose her.
He's afraid that what he just did drove her away.
But then that stops her.
She comes back, she takes care of him a little bit.
He holds on to her, refuses to let go.
You know, the whole romance thing.
(17:24):
Like the moment that gets to everybody.
This is when we start to see a little more intimacy between the two of them.
They start texting a lot more, start actually flirting and talking, having real conversations
(17:48):
and not just about who they want to murder.
Yes.
Talking about themselves.
Yes.
So this is kind of a fast paced book.
It time jumps quite a bit.
(18:10):
So we see a little more of like relationship building between the two of them before we
get to next year's kill.
Which has to be one of my favorites just because of the situation.
(18:33):
It's too funny.
This is what the trigger warnings were all about.
So we are now going to talk about some of the triggers.
And to be clear, I'm just going to pull them up and read them because there's a lot.
(18:55):
Yes, this book did come with tons of trigger warnings.
A lot.
So we have eyeballs and eye sockets being ripped out, amateur surgery, skin ornaments,
(19:18):
chainsaw, axes, knives, scalpels, and a lot of other sharp objects, accidental cannibalism,
not so accidental cannibalism, questionable use of mummified corpse, lobotomized manservant,
(19:39):
ill-advised use of kitchen implements.
I'm sorry about the cookies and cream ice cream.
I'm not really.
And you guys are soon going to find out what this means and we're all going to regret
it.
Detailed sex scenes, which of course is a smut book.
(20:03):
But to be warned, it is rather rough.
Daddy YouTube does not like these type of words, so I cannot say them, which means that
they also will not be that deeply talked about.
(20:24):
But it does get spicy.
And if you like to read about the rough spiciness, it's a great book, although it's a slow burn.
Which as a new person reading Smut, first I realized that slow burns are not for me.
(20:49):
And second, I was not expecting the scenes to be detailed like they were.
So if anybody is new to it, I just want to put that warning out there to get ready because
it is detailed.
This was Ali's first like real smut read, like spicy smut.
(21:13):
And although it is a slow burn, it is so worth the wait.
It was.
It is.
But it drove me crazy.
I just wanted them to hurry up and be.
I mean, that's all anybody wants.
OK, but back to trigger warnings.
(21:41):
Also the spice does get very rough.
It is very dom and sub.
There are other things, objects that come into play.
For anybody that is interested in this or looks for new tropes or anything, this book
(22:05):
does also have praise kings.
So keep that in mind.
And then there's also references to parental neglect and child abuse.
Parent loss, not depicted, but it is talked about.
So it doesn't actually happen during the storyline, but it is mentioned during the story.
(22:30):
References to child essay.
It is not depicted, but it is talked about and it's not.
Is young is what people would think when they hear that.
Still not OK, obviously.
It was high school.
(22:50):
Yeah, wasn't it?
Yes.
Think high school boarding school.
It's a book about serial killers.
So be prepared for some gruesome stuff, but the worst part is, in fact, the ice cream.
And we are going to get into that because not pleasant.
(23:18):
One of the most ironic and just funny scenes to me.
She slid the scene in there just so seamlessly.
It was like.
What?
OK, but.
So starting back at where we were.
(23:41):
They are sent to California this time.
Up in the woods of California.
Too fine.
This guy and there it starts out, you know, they met at the hotel or whatever.
And then Sloan ditches Rowan because this is a competition.
(24:02):
So she ditches him.
And goes to a place where she knows that the serial killer is going to be.
His name is Thorsten.
Rowan finds her at this restaurant.
He claims that he was driving by and saw his friend's car parked out front, but.
(24:23):
I really wonder if he had her tracked.
Like if he like put a tracking device on her, because how did he find her in this big city
when she ditched him?
Unless he followed her.
But he waited quite a while before joining them.
Either way, neither one would surprise me, whether it be a tracker or he followed her.
Fair enough.
(24:44):
But he kind of crashes there this little dinner date that she's got going on with Thorsten.
Thorsten invites them to a dinner at both of their houses or at his house, which is
like this big mansion type thing.
(25:04):
And they both show up.
And they sit down to have dinner and he starts out with wine and you know, appetizers and
soups and he keeps supplying the wine at one point specifically.
And if you know, you know, Chianti is brought out.
(25:32):
A nice Chianti.
Let that sink in for some of you.
If you know, you know.
But Rowan, he is plying them with alcohol trying to get them drunk and Rowan succeeds
in getting drunk.
Sloan allows herself to get a little buzzed so as not to tip off Thorsten.
(25:56):
But Rowan is drunk.
He is sloshed just out of it.
Starts confessing his heart to Sloan.
He is so gone.
And while all this is happening, meals are being brought in and out by the manservant
who has clearly received some type of botched brain surgery.
(26:24):
He just doesn't seem to be all there.
And by knowing who Thorsten is, we know that it definitely did not happen naturally or
in an actual medical lab.
It was intentional.
So he's pretty much just a subservient man who has no say in what he does.
(26:51):
And then he brings out the final course to pair with this Chianti.
Sloan is trying to give Rowan the eye as the food is being placed in front of him like,
(27:11):
stop it.
And he's just not, he's too far gone.
And he's too preoccupied with confessing his love that he's just not getting the hint.
And it was, what was it?
(27:35):
It was some kind of rump roast salad with a Dijon mustard or Dijon dressing.
And he compliments Thorsten on this Dijon dressing for the salad.
And Thorsten says, I made it special for you.
(27:56):
Meanwhile, Sloan is gagging.
Because it has not touched it either.
Yeah.
Because she knows.
She knows.
She knows.
It is not beef.
It is not pork.
(28:17):
It's not chicken or turkey or fish.
It is a different kind of flesh.
The forbidden flesh.
Old dudes eating on some straight up human, like human rump roast.
(28:45):
Ass.
Okay.
Just chowing down on it too, mind you.
He's not like just nibbling at it.
He's like stuffing that crap in there.
It's like when you get drunk and you need to go to Waffle House.
That was him, but on human rump roast.
(29:05):
Yeah.
He just, he needed it the way that most of us would, you know, prefer waffles.
He seemed to prefer this.
Granted, he didn't know.
But he said it tasted good.
Yeah.
And he's a chef.
(29:25):
So you would think that he would be able to taste the difference, but I guess he was just
too far drunk.
It was the drunk taste buds.
It had to be.
But he's getting after it.
And then he starts saying something and then he just plops faceplants right in this salad.
(29:49):
And ass flesh all in the face with a piece of it still hanging out of his mouth.
Not great.
And then Sloane looks at, you know, Thorsten and she's like, and then there were two.
And that makes her happy because she knows she's won this time.
(30:10):
This one was hers.
And then it cuts the scene to Rowan waking up.
What a horrible way to wake up, might I add.
Awful, awful way.
So at this point is whenever Rowan is waking up, and keep in mind he still has the rump
(30:37):
roast piece in his mouth.
So when he wakes up, Sloane is having to get it out of his mouth so he's not choking.
She then explains to him, she's also plucking the eyeballs out of Thorsten as well as he's
waking up.
Thorsten's alive.
Thorsten is still alive while she's still alive.
(30:59):
Plucking them out.
So he's feeling and hearing everything that's going on around him.
She explains to Rowan that the Dijon dressing was actually sedative.
That is why he passed out.
So she then kind of explains to Rowan, and I guess Thorsten as well, since he's still
(31:24):
alive at this point.
He's along for the journey.
Yeah.
The webs that she weaves with the string and flesh is actually kind of like a map that
leads to her victims' victims.
So the serial killers that she is taking out, she's basically leaving a map to show everybody
(31:48):
like hey, these are where their victims are.
His victims, not her victims.
Right.
The victim of her.
Her victims' victims.
The man whose flesh is strung up behind him.
Yes.
The dead guy.
(32:09):
And so after that, Slom then tells Rowan what he consumed.
In quotes, human flesh, straight up ass.
She gives Rowan a bucket and he throws up into it, which is totally called for because I'm
afraid I would have as well.
(32:30):
I definitely would have.
I think it's also worth mentioning that Thorsten was a bad guy.
Yes.
He wasn't just a serial killer, but he preyed on weak, vulnerable people.
He would lure them in with the thought of protection and a roof.
(32:52):
He would take them in, but then he would and then eat them.
He was a serial cannibal.
Very Hannibal Lecter.
Very Jeffrey Dahmer.
It's unpleasant.
(33:14):
So after he loses his dinner, they look over and they see the servant that has had botched
brain surgery chowing down on some mint chocolate chip ice cream.
Just going at it.
(33:37):
Slom decides to read the ingredients.
I apologize to anybody who has to hear this come out of Allie's mouth because you may
never look at ice cream the same again.
It took me weeks to be able to eat ice cream again.
She reads the ingredients to him.
(33:57):
Obviously she is doing this in a menacing way.
His stomach is still in turmoil over what was just disclosed to him that he ate.
So I feel like she is doing this to make it worse for him.
For sure.
She's definitely a sadist.
(34:20):
She totally did not have to do this to him.
She starts reading it to him and he tells her he does not want to know what's in the ice
cream.
He's begging.
He's begging her.
Please do not let me know what's in this ice cream.
(34:41):
She starts out cream and as she's naming these ingredients off Rowan is steadily begging.
Please stop.
Please don't.
Please don't read the rest.
So it's cream, sugar, and then she gets this really devious grin on her face.
(35:06):
She's about to read this next ingredient.
She glares her throat and she proceeds to say semen milked April 10th to April 13th.
She then makes a little joke, a little wisecrack how that's an interesting substitute to salt
(35:31):
in the ice cream.
And this is why cookies and cream ice cream is going to be ruined for some people.
The scene is just when you just read about a man eating flesh and then it goes to a scene
(35:53):
of a lobotomized man eating this kind of ice cream and just inhaling it.
Your stomach just kind of turns a little.
It took me weeks.
Everyone's stomach, the readers in Rowan.
(36:15):
But it did not.
The only person whose stomach didn't turn was Sloane because she thought it was pretty
hilarious.
She didn't eat it.
She didn't eat any of it.
She knew.
She knew better.
It was, yeah.
And thusforth, you now know why cookies and cream ice cream is listed in the trigger and
(36:41):
content warnings.
I can never look at it the same.
And that was my favorite ice cream.
It couldn't have been something like gross that nobody eats.
Literally.
It had to be something good.
Couldn't have been like the bubblegum ice cream, an ice cream that nobody eats.
(37:01):
It had to be cookies and cream.
Brynn Weaver did that on purpose.
100%.
For sure.
I feel like she, this is kind of foreshadowing, but she ruins a lot of food and I feel like
she does it on purpose.
Yeah.
The author, not the main character.
(37:23):
Yeah.
Because if you read her other books, there is also food in the content warnings.
It's definitely a favorite of hers.
Some people focus on the spicy scenes or focus on the theme.
(37:45):
She's like, I'm going to add some food in here and I'm going to ruin everybody's favorite
foods because it's not just little things that nobody really eats.
It's like staples in people's homes.
Yeah.
I bet she does it all on purpose too.
(38:07):
I bet she hopes that whoever is reading is eating whatever she's talking about in the
moment.
So they just kind of look at it and they're like, hmm.
Because it's the most common ice cream.
So anybody could really be eating it during this time.
Yeah.
And then the other foods that she ruins are also the most common foods that people eat.
(38:29):
So typical.
Such popular.
If you're having a party, this one type of food is what you're going to be getting to
supply a whole group of people.
It's definitely intentional.
That's for sure.
Yeah.
(38:50):
That's it.
This round goes to Sloane.
She wins this one and Rowan loses in more ways than one.
He lost in all the ways.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
Poor guy.
(39:10):
I don't know what he did to deserve that.
I know after he protected her and everything, he got the short end of that stick completely.
She tried to warn him, but he was too eager to drink that wine.
(39:32):
It also gets mentioned in this scene.
He says that he doesn't remember anything, but in his inner dialogue, it's clear that
he does remember confessing his love to her.
Yes.
But he could tell that when she asked, so you do you remember anything that happened?
(39:56):
He could tell that she was like holding her breath and he took that as a he shouldn't
have said what he said.
So he pretends to not remember saying any of it.
And there is like from what he perceives to be a sigh of relief on her face, which is
(40:17):
a smug book.
We all know that's not the case.
I hate when main characters just assume what the other person is thinking instead of talking.
Yes.
But granted, is that really far off from real life?
Not at all.
(40:38):
I mean, because I can say myself, I sometimes assume before I ask.
So, I mean, how many times have you thought that somebody felt a certain way and then
came out later that that was not the case at all?
You were completely wrong.
(40:59):
That often.
It's fair.
Maybe that is a lesson to all of us that we should communicate better.
Yes.
You should talk about things.
Don't keep things held in and assume.
It's a saying my dad used to say, when you assume you make an ass out of you and me.
(41:23):
I like that.
But to move on from the Destiny and Ally therapy session.
After this one, we see Rowan going back to Boston where he decides to open up or where
(41:48):
he had decided to open up a new restaurant because he already owned one because he's
a professional chef.
But he's opening a new one called Butcher and Blackbird.
Blackbird is the nickname that he gave Sloane.
It's like a personal thing between the two of them.
Nobody else calls her that.
Just him.
At this point, they've gotten very serious.
(42:11):
Yes, a lot more intimacy.
We still have not reached the most important thing in a smart book, but we are getting
closer.
I promise.
But he decides to open a restaurant and name it Aftername it Butcher and Blackbird for
(42:33):
him and her.
And then forgot to mention when they left Thorsten's, Sloane demanded that Rowan take
David, the lobotomized man, back with him to Boston because she didn't have the heart
(42:54):
to leave a not all there man to be left on his own.
So she demanded that Rowan take him.
Like just...
Yeah, especially when it wasn't his fault he was the way he was.
He didn't ask to be lobotomized.
And it kind of draws some tension between the two of them because now it's almost like
(43:21):
they've got a kid.
Yes, David's essentially a child.
He's got a child mentality.
Obviously, he was eating some very questionable cookies and cream ice cream.
Anybody in their right mind would not have picked up that ice cream.
Yeah.
Taken a bite out of it.
(43:41):
Well he didn't have his right mind.
That was taken away from him.
Exactly.
Sorry, lobotomies are not funny.
Sorry.
No, not at all.
We're not laughing at that.
We're laughing at the ice cream.
Ice cream.
The ice cream.
But David starts to, you know, put a little tension on this very new relationship because
(44:05):
they had just reached this honeymoon phase and now essentially they have a kid between
the two of them.
So Sloan moves to Boston to be closer to Rowan.
They haven't made anything official yet, but they are starting to get a lot closer in their
relationship with each other.
(44:28):
But there are still some looming insecurities within Sloan that, you know, he may not really
want her, that he's just, you know, keeping her around because they have a hobby in common.
Yeah.
But she's more of just a friend that he can vent to and relate to than something more.
(44:51):
And that's her fear.
Those are her insecurities.
I mean, we've all been there.
But-
Which I would, I kind of understand the insecurity.
It's understandable.
I mean, there's got to be something, you know.
You meet, you're a serial killer and you meet another serial killer.
Like how often does that really happen?
(45:14):
It makes you wonder.
I can see why she is concerned with that.
But it doesn't help when he invites her to a gala, gives her a dress.
You know, it's a big swanky event and she's all excited to go to this thing and just feel
(45:34):
beautiful and feel wanted and then they get there and not long into the gala, maybe an
hour or two, he turns it into, hey, let's indulge in our hobby.
There's a guy here that I'd really like to take to, you know, the playroom.
(45:58):
And it just kind of shatters her because it was like he confirmed her fear that she was
only around for his hobby.
And not because he was actually interested in being with her.
So she just kind of dips out.
She's like, yeah, I'm not going to stick around for this.
(46:22):
And he got called away because there was a fire at his first restaurant, his original
restaurant.
So he doesn't have time, nor would he even think about it because he's a man.
But to realize that her entire demeanor changes, her facial features change, she's not into
(46:45):
the evening anymore.
And because he doesn't notice this and just runs along, it all just culminates and confirms
her fear that she already had to begin with.
Now they don't really talk about it until later.
(47:12):
So there's just this looming feeling hanging over her that...
Yeah, because it kind of got swept under the rug.
Yeah.
And then they end up in their next...
Level of their game.
Yeah, I was trying to think of the word.
(47:35):
I felt like next level would kind of go with it.
This one did amp it up a bit.
Yeah.
Again, we go out to, you know, the middle of friggin nowhere.
Of course.
Where we meet a man named Harvey Meade.
In this book...
Very creepy man.
(47:55):
Yes.
In this book, you notice a lot of similarities between real life serial killers.
Well, if Thorsten was Hannibal and that other guy in the beginning was Dexter, or well,
Dexter's victims.
This guy is definitely Bates Motel.
(48:18):
Without the motel.
Norman Bates.
Yes.
Yeah.
He is the psychotic mama's boy.
But the mom is dead.
And she was an overbearing bitch of a woman.
And this is a big dude.
Harvey Meade is described as like this monstrous big guy.
(48:43):
And Sloane is, you know, an average sized woman.
You know.
So Harvey Meade.
This one just goes wrong right away.
He's also like a chainsaw dude.
Very quickly.
Yeah.
And he's like a chainsaw dude.
So he's Norman Bates and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
(49:05):
Yes.
That's exactly what it is.
The two somehow met and had Harvey Meade.
Yes.
And he has a victim in his basement.
And Sloane decides she's not going to wait around for Rowan and his plan because I think
at this point they were going to try to team up and take the guy together.
(49:28):
Yeah.
I think they were going to like split off.
One was going to go one way.
Yeah.
Kind of meet up in the middle.
Yep.
And Rowan was becoming really concerned with where Sloane was because he couldn't find
her.
Sloane was becoming concerned with the girl in the basement and Rowan.
(49:49):
And it just went all to hell.
She ends up getting caught off guard by Harvey Meade.
And he...
They end up in a physical altercation and then he kicks her in the face and she falls
into the basement with the other victim.
(50:15):
And Rowan seems to see part of this altercation on...
Was it a video screen?
He saw it somewhere.
He either saw it like down the hall or there was like a security feed set up somewhere
that he saw it on.
I don't quite remember.
I'm pretty sure it was the security system.
(50:35):
I think so too.
But he sees this and he panics and so then he ends up going after Harvey.
Not rationally thinking.
And that doesn't go well either.
But he ends up finding Sloane and pulls her up from the basement while the other girl
(50:56):
screams, don't leave me, don't leave me.
He literally tells her to just shut the... up.
He was not having that girl.
You are going to mess up what we are about to do.
You can hold on.
You've survived this long.
We're gonna get rid of him.
Don't worry, we'll be back.
But he does not say it nicely.
(51:17):
He's just straight up like, shut up.
And then they disappear and they leave the girl in the basement chained up, freaking
out.
Well, this is where things get interesting because they do end up getting the drop on
Harvey.
And they find Mama Meade's bones.
(51:41):
Straight Norman Bates style.
I mean, she's still in her clothes.
She still has her dentures in.
And she's sitting in a rocking chair.
And mind you, the whole house is very... what you would expect from this whole situation.
I mean, it's gross.
It's old.
It's prehistoric.
(52:02):
It's antique.
And there's this old lady sitting in this old chair with doilies everywhere.
And she's just bones, still dressed in her little gown.
And I laughed during this whole scene.
This whole part that I'm about to say, I could not stop laughing.
(52:24):
And if you listen to the audiobook, it is so much more funny than what you would get
if you were just reading it in your head because her acting in this scene was top tier.
So Sloane gets the bright idea because she's mad.
(52:45):
She is like on fire that this dude hit her and kicked her in the face and she is ticked
off.
So she decides to torture him psychologically because she knows that the mother was like
an overbearing bitch of a woman.
(53:07):
And Harvey is on the ground and she lays Mama Mead's bones on top of him and starts talking
in a creepy voice, like an old lady voice.
And starts talking to him through Mama Mead's bones about how bad of a boy he's been.
(53:32):
And Harvey, with his psychological issues, thinks that Mama Mead is back from the dead.
And he's turned back for him.
Yeah.
And he starts panicking and Sloane ramps it up and she's doing this just to torture him.
Like she wants to psychologically mess him up before she physically messes him up.
(53:55):
Like this is fun for her.
Yeah.
Before she gets to work.
She is enjoying the hell out of it.
Yeah.
Yes.
It's like her foreplay.
It's weird.
But she sadly does not get that chance because he dies of a heart attack right then and there.
(54:18):
And this woman tries to bring him back so she can kill him the right way.
Yeah.
And she is mad and she is CPR and the life back into him and it's just not taking.
And Rowan's like, stop, please stop.
(54:38):
This is getting weird.
This is, he's dead.
You've taken it too far.
Yeah.
Like you can't, you've already killed him.
You can't bring him back and kill him the way that you originally wanted to.
And she's mad about it.
She throws a whole hissy fit about it.
And I loved that scene.
(55:00):
It was pretty funny.
It was just, this whole book, it's so dark.
So so dark.
Because it's nothing but about serial killers and predators and cannibalism and eating semen
and it's so dark.
But somehow this author manages to make it so hilarious throughout this whole book.
(55:26):
These awful scenes that should make you want to like throw up, gag, stop reading.
She makes them comical.
I also think that the voice actors are kind of what make the book.
The voice actors were absolutely terrific.
(55:48):
Most of anybody who listens to Smut on audiobooks knows Joe Arden and knows that he can do any
accent.
Something we forgot to mention was that Rowan is Irish.
Yes.
And whenever I first thought, when I was trying to decide between the Kindle and the Audible,
(56:10):
I was like, I can't do the voice.
So there's no way.
Like, I'm not going to find the Lucky Charms man attractive.
Yeah.
But then I saw it was Joe Arden.
And those of us who listen to audio Smut books knows who Joe Arden is and somehow the Lucky
(56:34):
Charms man became...
There's no words.
I never thought that accent could be sexy.
But he made it happen.
He made it happen.
But all that is to say, I'm getting off track because that man, I don't even know what he
(56:57):
looks like.
I just like listening to his voice.
His voice.
Yeah.
I know his voice in all languages.
But the actors make these dark moments so hilarious.
They make it to where that you can actually get through the scene without feeling tremendous
(57:23):
discomfort.
Yeah.
For instance, this scene that should have been like, oh my God, Norman Bates, Ed Gein,
this is disturbing, ended up making me laugh throughout the whole scene.
I mean, granted, I laughed during horror movies, but...
(57:43):
She somehow found a way to make such a messed up individual and messed up scene be lighthearted.
Exactly.
And that's good writing and good voice acting.
It was great all the way around.
But we now have the matter of the fact that Sloane was just beaten up by this mountain
(58:10):
of a man.
She does not feel great.
She has a literal boot mark on her face.
Blastered on there.
I mean, you can actually see, what was it?
Carhartt?
I think it was a Carhartt boot.
You could read Carhartt on her face from how hard that boot hit her.
(58:36):
So Rowan decides to take her to his brother, who is in fact a doctor.
Fjoln is a doctor.
You will learn that Rowan, his brother Fjoln, and his other brother helped me out here.
Oh my gosh.
(59:00):
We just read the book!
Just read Leather and Light.
How can we forget?
Oh my gosh.
I have to look it up?
I think you are because I'm sitting here racking my brain and it's not coming up.
Lachlan.
(59:20):
Lachlan.
Lachlan.
Yes.
Lachlan.
Rowan, our main male character, Fjoln, his younger brother, and then Lachlan, his other
brother.
Lachlan is the one that sends them the names of the serial killers to go find.
Not a serial killer, just very well connected.
(59:42):
And then Fjoln happens to be a doctor.
So you've got a serial killer, a very underworld connected dude, and then you have a doctor.
Strange family they've got here, okay?
But it's their family nonetheless.
We are all a little knowledgeable with some dysfunctional family issues, so to each their
(01:00:07):
own.
But Rowan decides to take Sjoln to Fjoln to have her looked at and examined because she
refused to go to a hospital and have to explain how this happened.
Yeah, that'd be a hard way to- hard thing to explain.
But when they show up, Fjoln is not there.
(01:00:30):
Who is there is a ex-circus performer named Rose and she is crazy as shit, okay?
Insane.
Just a nut of a woman.
And she threatens Rowan because she thinks that Rowan is the one who did all of that
(01:00:56):
to Sjoln.
And she is mad.
Rose is like, did you hit her?
And you don't have to lie for him.
And they're trying to explain it, but she was not having it.
She was dead set on the fact that everything they said was an excuse and that Rowan beat
Sjoln.
Not the case.
(01:01:19):
But eventually, I don't know why he doesn't say it from the start, but eventually Rowan
says that he is Fjoln's brother.
Yeah, that should have been the first thing he said.
You would think, but men are a little on the slow side, so we'll let it slide.
But Rose calls Fjoln to corroborate the story.
(01:01:48):
And the way in which Fjoln demands that Rowan prove he is who he says he is, because this
whole family is skeptical, but he was also just wanting to have a little fun.
He demands that Rowan say out loud to everybody in the room what his childhood nickname was
and Rowan refuses.
He would rather get gutted by the ex-circus chick than admit his childhood nickname.
(01:02:16):
And God bless him, I understand why.
Eventually, he does say it because Sloane gives him the puppy dog eyes and is like,
I'd really like to get my situation taken care of.
Could you please for me just please say your childhood nickname?
(01:02:36):
And so he divulges that his childhood nickname was Shitflicker.
I still don't remember if they even say where this nickname came from.
I don't think they fully went into the meaning behind the nickname.
(01:03:01):
If they did and we missed it, leave it in the comments, because I would like to know
where this came from.
I don't remember, but I do remember laughing so hard when the scene described his embarrassment
and the way that Joe Arden says it in this Irish accent, in this embarrassed Irish accent.
(01:03:24):
It's phenomenal.
It is just so funny.
But he gives this, you know, safe word, so to speak, and later on, Fiona shows up, he
dresses her wounds, whatever have you.
And then Sloane goes to bed and Rose kind of gives Rowan a kick in the butt.
(01:03:57):
You know, she's that weird character that pops up out of nowhere that gives like that
wise wisdom.
And she's like, well, what do you have to lose?
There is a girl in there who clearly wants you.
And if you don't take your chance, you're gonna miss it.
(01:04:20):
So that's what he does.
He takes his chance and he storms in there and we finally have liftoff people.
This is the moment we were all waiting for.
And man, was it good.
This scene, this spicy scene, last, how many pages was it?
(01:04:46):
Probably about four or five.
A good four or five pages of nothing but this.
I mean, there's like maybe half a page where he falls asleep.
And we all know that specific sleep scene where it does not the appendage does not get
taken away from her while they go to sleep.
It just stays there, which I don't know how is anatomically possible, but it did apparently
(01:05:11):
happens in these books.
But it is a terrific scene.
There are.
There are toys.
There is this spot and this spot.
And mind you, at first, he's trying to be gentle because she did just, you know, have
(01:05:35):
the life beat out of her.
But she's ready for a different kind of beating.
And she demands it and she gets it.
Yes.
And I really wish I could go into more detail on YouTube, but I don't think we can.
No, not not the detail that they went into.
(01:05:56):
Yeah.
Yeah.
But let's just say it was definitely worth the wait.
It was a great scene.
Ali is a New Times Smut reader.
I am an avid dark romance girlie.
And we can both agree that this was a great scene.
(01:06:18):
Yes, 100 percent.
So that's where we're at is we've gotten the nice spicy scene out of the way.
So what happens next after their spicy scene?
(01:06:43):
Rowan invites Sloane Lark and Lachlan to dinner at his restaurant.
Oh my gosh, my mind went blank.
Three and Butcher and Blackbird.
It's the grand opening of Butcher and Blackbird, isn't it?
He hasn't shown her Butcher and Blackbird yet, has he?
I thought that's what the whole dinner at the booth was about, because he put the wings
(01:07:08):
there, right?
No, the wings, they take him.
They go to dinner at his other restaurant.
And then at the end of the dinner, he tells her he has something to show her.
Oh, OK.
I see.
I'm getting my timeline a little.
(01:07:29):
But what is the restaurant's name?
My mind went blank.
Three and Coach.
Three and Coach.
OK, so they're at Three and Coach.
He is concerned because Sloane has not shown up yet.
He thinks that she might be getting cold feet, isn't going to show.
Well, eventually she does.
They all sit down and eat.
He's happy to see her show up.
(01:07:51):
And after the dinner, he proceeds to let her know that he has something to show her.
He hasn't a surprise for her.
I also want to mention that at Three and Coach, he actually had a booth that was permanently
reserved for her.
Yes, it had her name on it.
So if at any time she walked in and decided to come see it or come eat there, she had
(01:08:17):
a permanent booth that was perfectly set to where she could see all of the exits, which
for her PTSD driven mind because of assaults that happened at the boarding school.
Yes.
It's like the perfect booth.
It was so thoughtful.
Not only did he permanently reserve this booth, but he picked the perfect one for her and
(01:08:42):
her PTSD and her serial killer mind.
So I thought that was really sweet.
Like he knew her so well.
He knew exactly where she would want to sit in a restaurant.
Exactly.
Men can be great sometimes.
Yeah, they can sometimes.
(01:09:03):
So he makes her cover her eyes.
He does not want her to see where they're going or what she's going to see when they
get there.
A couple blocks go by.
They walk for a couple blocks and then he opens her eyes and she looks and it's this
(01:09:24):
beautiful brick building with the words butchering blackbird on it.
He is showing her that he is opening a restaurant based off of them, essentially.
So he brings her in and he's showing her around while he takes her to one particular booth
(01:09:50):
and she looks above it and there are very intricate black feathers hanging over this
booth.
Blackbird.
Yes.
So this is her booth at their restaurant pretty much.
(01:10:10):
And so obviously, you know, she swooned over that.
As we all did.
Yes.
So she sees this and he leaves to go to the back to go to the kitchen.
And he comes back with a tray of food.
(01:10:35):
And so it's just ingredients.
It's not all of the food.
It's like they're going to make this together.
So they start making the food and then things start getting a little intense.
And then we get another spicy scene.
And keep in mind, this is in front of an open window at this restaurant.
(01:11:03):
They are on this booth on the table at this booth where they are pretty much showcased.
Just getting after it.
And she has a thought about the window and how anybody walking by could just see it.
And then per usual, the thought just quickly flees from her mind.
(01:11:28):
And she's just enveloped in the moment.
And he very obviously does not care at all.
Like I feel like at this point, he has the mindset, this is my woman and I'm going to
let everybody know this is my woman.
And that in a way is him letting everybody know that's his woman.
Staking his claim as we all love and smut.
(01:11:53):
Yes.
But.
What?
I was just going to comment on the scene.
I was going to say, so like I said, once it starts, it doesn't stop.
Yeah.
(01:12:13):
Once she wrote that first spicy scene, it just torpedoes.
It does not stop.
And all good things must come to an end.
But I also think at this point, isn't this the first time that Sloane tells Rowan she
loves him?
(01:12:34):
Yes.
At this restaurant and the spicy scene.
She lets him know how she feels finally.
Everything kind of clicks into place.
Yes.
He has his old restaurant that's doing well.
He's got his new restaurant that is soon to open.
(01:12:56):
They are finally connecting on a better level because prior to this, they were having some
strain in the relationship because she worried he was going to get tired of her and realized
that really all they had in common was their hobby.
Killing.
Yeah.
And this kind of puts all those thoughts out of her head.
(01:13:19):
She realizes how invested he is into this relationship and they both finally just admit
how they truly feel.
Yeah.
And as any book would have it, things go downhill.
(01:13:42):
Quickly.
Very quickly.
So we have another part where they are in a good place, but at the same time Rowan has
been acting kind of strange.
Again, this book has a lot of time jumps.
(01:14:03):
So we're kind of moving forward and Rowan's acting kind of weird and Sloane is really
confused by this behavior.
And he gives her a key to the restaurant and is like, I want you to come by later.
You know, we'll talk about some stuff and then I've got some errands to run.
(01:14:23):
I want you to go with me.
Well Rowan goes to the restaurant and when he gets there, David is there.
Now this is like closing time.
One of the cooks was supposed to have taken David home.
Remember David is the lobotomy guy that they brought home as like a child.
(01:14:51):
But he's there and it's presumed that one of the cooks forgot David and didn't take
him home after closing so he's just been sitting there.
But then we find out David is not who he seems.
David is not a lobotomized victim and he is not incoherent.
(01:15:14):
He has no mental struggles at all as we come to learn.
He is actually a serial killer in his own right and went to Thorsten's to pose as a
servant because he knew that there were a couple of serial killers that were going after
serial killers and knew it was a matter of time before he was found and so he decided
(01:15:40):
to hide himself in plain sight.
That's what he did.
And then when they brought him home, he waited for the right moment to just pop out and say
hey guys, guess what?
I actually know what's going on.
(01:16:01):
I am not incompetent.
I am very competent.
Well, needless to say, he as a serial killer wants to take out these two serial killers
and he has an infatuation with Sloane.
Like a deep, unrequited, strange attraction to Sloane.
(01:16:28):
He wants her but he doesn't just want her in the spicy ways that we talk about, he also
wants to torture her and kill her because that is what gets him going.
Well, Sloane shows up like she was supposed to and in order to protect her, as these books
(01:16:53):
would have it, Rowan says awful, hurtful things to make her leave and mind you, she's been
staying at his place for a while now.
Like they've really been together.
They're serious.
Serious at this point.
(01:17:13):
It's a relationship.
And Rowan says these awful things and chases her away and pushes her away to protect her
from David who is hiding just around the corner.
Well, Sloane goes back to the apartment and she does what any woman would do.
(01:17:37):
She breaks down and cries and she calls her best friend and she events to her best friend
and their best friend's like, that does not sound like him but okay.
And then she goes, you know, the whole best friend row like, you can do better, come back
home, we'll work this out, great best friend, you know?
(01:17:59):
But then Sloane remembers she has a secret camera in the kitchen at the restaurant.
And she realizes this by the way, like an hour later.
It's not like this was 10 minutes later.
She finally thinks about how odd his behavior was and decides, oh yeah, I have a camera.
(01:18:24):
I can go look to see what's going on.
I'm afraid I would have instantly checked the camera as soon as I left the restaurant.
I would have instantly checked the camera just to see his reaction when I left to see
what he did.
Because in a normal girl's mind, we're all going to jump to there's another woman.
I would have been checking that so fast.
(01:18:48):
100%.
Had she had done that, she could have spared some unpleasantness for Rowan because when
she does check it, Rowan is strapped to a chair with his wrists facing up and David
is torturing him.
(01:19:11):
And cutting away pieces of flesh and doing all kinds of bizarre things to Rowan.
So Sloane, after finally an hour later checking this, she rushes to the restaurant.
And she confronts David, but not as an enemy.
(01:19:35):
She plays on his feelings for her.
And also in turn, kind of gets to slap Rowan back across the face metaphorically for the
things that he said to her because she turns around and says some horrible things about
him.
One of which being that anybody can spew poetics while in the middle of doing it.
(01:20:06):
Which stung him because he did in fact come up with some pretty spicy poetry in the middle
of them doing it.
It was very special to them.
It was very important to the scene.
It was him pouring his heart out as he drilled into her.
(01:20:29):
And so she says some things to hurt him, but also to play into this part that she is on
David's side and that they can go serial killing together.
And David's skeptical at first because he's not a complete idiot.
(01:20:52):
But then she hands him the gun that she stole from him when his back was turned.
She gives it back to him.
So he's starting to kind of let his guard down, but as soon as he takes the gun from
her, she pulls out a knife that she had behind her and she cuts him across the hand.
(01:21:16):
I think it was the wrist.
She like, yeah, I think she slashed his wrist.
Yeah.
They were doing the handoff and when he stretched out his hand, she slashed his wrist.
He came at her and she cut him again.
And then I remember correctly, he falls to his knees and as he does, she has the knife
(01:21:41):
waiting there at like mid levels so that when he falls, the knife immediately plunges through
this little part of the neck and goes up straight through his mouth and into his brain.
And that is David.
David is dead.
(01:22:04):
And the attack is finished, but she's still mad at Rowan for the things that he said to
her to push her away because he said all the things that, you know, of course she was already
worried about.
He even told her that she needed to leave and go back home and that he didn't want her
there.
And so she's even though, even though he's strapped to a chair bleeding out, she's still
(01:22:28):
mad at him because only a serial killer could be that calm in that moment.
But she's still mad at him.
She decides to unstrap him and you know, they get him medical attention and then we time
jump again.
(01:22:51):
And this time we are at the next one of their kills.
And it's done in Sloane's fashion, which is she kills him, but she plucks out their eyeballs
and makes the web behind them.
Rowan decides to put a note in the eye socket of said dead guy.
(01:23:20):
And he baits her into checking her work again because she's very particular about how nice
and neat the eyes must be plucked.
Yes, they must be perfect.
Yes, they cannot look gougy in their words.
And so she goes to check again, she pulls out the note and he is asking her in the note
(01:23:48):
to marry him.
And so they do.
In a romantic way.
It worked for them.
But she accepts, they go and they have an impromptu wedding on the beach.
And then in the very last chapter, the very last scene, we get a kind of foreshadowing
(01:24:13):
for the next book, which the next book is about leather and it's called Leather and
Lark.
It's about Lark, Sloane's best friend, and Lachlan, Rowan's brother, the one that is
very connected.
But we get kind of a foreshadowing for this book at the end of Butcher and Blackbird.
(01:24:38):
Because an unnamed sibling of one of Rowan's victims kind of pops up out of nowhere and
we see that he's going to want revenge and he is plotting and watching them because he
is going to take down the person who murdered his brother.
(01:25:00):
And this sets us up for the next book, Leather and Lark, which is also a great read by Bran
Weaver.
But again, you will have food ruined for you.
Because that's what she likes to do.
Overall, this book was great.
(01:25:23):
In my opinion, it was absolutely fantastic.
The writing was good.
The plot was good.
The spicy scenes were exceptional.
Everybody that could write three chapters of spice, like consecutively, and not come
up with the same way twice.
(01:25:44):
You got to give it to them.
That's impressive.
Yeah.
The book was dark.
It was spicy.
It was funny.
Overall, I just loved this book.
It was a very good book.
And if you have a choice between reading it or listening to it on Audible, choose Audible
(01:26:13):
because those voice actors did an amazing job.
Yes, they did.
But I recommend this book as somebody who's read a lot of Smut.
This is one of my favorites.
I can't wait for it to come out.
(01:26:35):
I think it's a TV series.
TV series are a movie.
Y'all let me know.
It's coming out.
It's being made into an actual film.
And we're going to get to watch these characters come to life, which we all know it's going
to get butchered somehow.
It's going to get butchered because the books are-
(01:26:56):
The shows are never as good as the books.
Exactly.
They never keep it on point.
I'm curious if it's going to be like 365 and be an actual Smut book on screen or if they're
just going to take the storyline and leave out all the Smut.
(01:27:21):
Guess we'll find out.
I'm excited for it though.
You can have the storyline and also Smut.
You don't have to make it too Smutty.
So I hope that's what they end up doing.
Yeah.
I mean we wait till the end for it anyways.
So I doubt-
Yeah, once we get there it keeps happening.
(01:27:43):
I doubt everything that is mentioned in those scenes is even able to be put into a film.
That would be like an HBO.
That'd be an HBO film.
Oh yeah.
It's definitely not Netflix.
Like Netflix gets kind of, it's a little scatty there sometimes but HBO, they go all out.
(01:28:06):
They don't care.
Yeah.
And FX.
Yes.
FX is another one that tends to just throw every rule out the door.
They push boundaries.
That is the polite way to say it, yes.
(01:28:27):
That's it.
Yeah.
So that is Butcher and Blackbird by Bryn Weaver.
Great read.
As always, thanks for listening and we will see y'all Thursday on Crime and Passion for
our True Crime Podcast.
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