Ember by Naima Simone: My Honest Book Review
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⭐ Quick Verdict
⭐ My Rating: 3.5 ★
💭 Quick Take: A wildly twisted Cinderella retelling packed with unhinged characters, scorching chemistry, and enough violence to make this one a true dark romance.
👉 Read If You Love: Dark romance, enemies to lovers, bully romance, fractured fairy tale retellings, morally gray characters, obsessive heroes
🚫 Skip if: You want an emotionally deep romance or aren’t comfortable with graphic violence, torture, and morally corrupt characters.
Book Details
Release Date: July 2026
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Tropes: Enemies to Lovers, Bully Romance, Stepsiblings, Cinderella Retelling, Taboo Romance
Series: The Hunted Kingdom
What This Book Is About
Ever since her father remarried, Ember has lived under the thumb of an abusive family who treated her more like a servant than a daughter.
Now that her father’s death has left control of the family’s fashion empire—and its dangerous criminal underworld—to her stepbrother Asad, Ember sees her chance to finally escape.
Unfortunately for her, Asad has other plans.
Determined to keep Ember exactly where he wants her, he gives her one month to marry him, forcing two lifelong enemies with a dangerous shared history into a battle of obsession, power, and undeniable attraction.
My Review of Ember
I picked this one up because I’m a complete sucker for modern fairy tale retellings, and Naima Simone absolutely commits to transforming Cinderella into something dark, violent, and completely unhinged.
My first piece of advice?
Read the trigger warnings.
Seriously.
I knew this would be dark, but I still wasn’t fully prepared for just how morally questionable these characters would be. I initially assumed Ember would be the quiet, broken heroine simply trying to survive years of abuse and neglect.
I could not have been more wrong.
Ember is just as dangerous and unpredictable as Asad, and once I realized that years of abuse, neglect, and trauma had shaped them both into deeply damaged, morally unhinged people, I had a much better time settling into the story.
The strongest aspect of this book is easily the chemistry.
Asad and Ember bounce between fantasizing about killing one another and ripping each other’s clothes off, and somehow Naima makes that emotional whiplash work. Their enemies-to-lovers tension is incredibly hot, and Asad’s obsession with Ember becomes more compelling the deeper you get into the story.
I also loved how many Cinderella elements Naima wove into the plot. From the evil stepmother to the ball and even the missing glass slipper, there are plenty of clever nods to the original fairy tale while still making this story feel entirely its own.
Where the book fell a bit short for me was the depth.
The power struggle surrounding the family’s criminal empire, the fashion business, and even the designer drug storyline all had interesting potential but mostly stayed in the background. Likewise, I found myself wanting more exploration of Ember’s psychological state and Asad’s criminal world rather than simply watching events unfold.
The ending also wrapped up much faster than I expected, though I appreciated that the story reached a satisfying conclusion instead of ending on a cliffhanger.
I received an advance reader copy. All opinions are my own.
What I Loved
- A fresh, dark take on Cinderella
- The absolutely insane chemistry between Asad and Ember
- Morally gray characters who fully embrace the chaos
- Clever fairy tale callbacks throughout the story
- Asad’s obsessive “she’s mine” energy
Things to Know Before You Read
- Read the trigger warnings before starting
- Graphic violence, murder, torture, and abuse
- Both main characters are morally corrupt
- Strong bully romance elements
- Plot occasionally takes a backseat to the romance and chemistry
Final Thoughts
This definitely won’t be for every romance reader, but I had a surprising amount of fun once I accepted just how completely unhinged these characters were.
If you’re looking for a dark modern fairy tale filled with obsessive attraction, enemies-to-lovers tension, and morally gray characters who don’t pretend to be heroes, Ember is worth checking out.
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