In a huge mansion, Elea is held against her will by Aleksander, a powerful businessman at the head of a network of cybercriminals. She is tortured, sleeps in a cage, is almost drowned in a bath of ice water and has her hand stabbed. All so that she reveals her secrets to her torturer. However, these intrigues lead to a passionate love story between the two protagonists. A good old Stockholm syndrome.
This book titled Games Volume 1. The Bogeyman (Chatterley), by the author Okéanos S., belongs to the literary genre of dark romance. ” Of the Dark love stories that flirt with the limits of morality and the forbidden, here romance rhymes with violence”, can be read on the BMR publishing site (Hachette), as a definition.
“The idea is to push the sliders of passion further with a figure of toxic masculinity that we try to save in spite of itself”decrypts Glenn Tavennec, director of the popular novel label Verso (Seuil). These violent stories use, according to him, the « clichés » and the “absolute fascination with the violent man and the submissive woman”. A pattern that repeats itself almost identically in every book.
Also read the column: Article reserved for our subscribers “In real life, a guy who would do that would get life”: the captives of dark romances
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Commercial success
An avid reader, Angelina, 21, speaks rather of an attraction to the“heavy atmosphere” and the « suspense » stories “mafia and gang”. Margaux, 21, who read it “around fifty in two years”she also admits to having succumbed to “the persistent tension” present in the books.
And it’s a success. The famous series of three novels Captive (BMR), by Sarah Rivens, has exceeded one million copies sold in France. The first volume of Lakestone (BMR), by the same author, has been sold more than 200,000 times. These books are shared everywhere on social networks, especially on TikTok under the hashtag #booktok. In this virtual community of readers, Internet users, mostly young women aged 15 to 25, share their opinions on their readings. And dark romance is no exception.
Aware that these novels can be read by a very young audience, Marie Legrand, director of BMR editions, defends herself: “We only publish dark psychological romance, that is to say, the hero manipulates and mentally torments the heroine. We will never publish a book where there is rape or incest, for example.”
No problem, however, to publish Captive, where the heroine, Ella, gets her hand burned on a hotplate by her “owner” John, with whom she will eventually fall in love. “It’s embarrassing, but it’s not really breaking any rules.”justifies Mme Legrand. Dark romance or romance without violence, these books are “necessarily in the adult section”to prevent this “falls into the hands of an unsuspecting public”. The sex scenes, very explicit, “must not “Building the way young people view their romantic relationships”she adds.
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