Lights Out by Navessa Allen Book Review
- Danielle Robinson
- Apr 23
- 4 min read
Lights Out doesn’t ease you in—it pulls you straight into a space where desire and discomfort sit uncomfortably close together, and then asks you to stay there long enough to understand why.
Navessa Allen builds a story that thrives on that tension. Not shock for its own sake, but a carefully controlled balance between fantasy and reality, where the line separating the two is constantly shifting.
On the surface, it’s a dark romance wrapped around obsession, anonymity, and a fantasy that edges close to something far more unsettling. But sit with it a little longer, and what unfolds is less about darkness for its own sake and more about what people reach for when they’ve been living too long without softness, without safety, without being truly seen.
Aly is a trauma nurse—competent, exhausted, and emotionally worn thin in a way that feels achingly familiar. Her world is clinical, controlled, and relentlessly real. Josh, on the other hand, exists first as a faceless presence online—curated, performative, and deliberately removed from reality. Their connection begins in that space between watching and being watched, where fantasy feels harmless because it isn’t supposed to cross into real life.
And then it does.
What makes Lights Out so compelling isn’t the premise itself—it’s how aware the book is of that premise. It knows exactly how thin the line is between desire and danger, between control and vulnerability, and it plays in that space with surprising restraint. The dynamic between Aly and Josh isn’t about overpowering or submission in the traditional dark romance sense; it’s about negotiation, curiosity, and a kind of mutual recognition that feels far more equal than the genre typically allows.
There’s also an unexpected softness threaded through the story. Beneath the tension and the obsession, there’s care—quiet, practical, almost domestic. The kind that shows up in small gestures rather than declarations. It shifts the tone in a way that makes the romance feel less like a spiral and more like something being built, piece by piece, even when the foundation is unconventional.
Thematically, the novel leans into something very current: the idea of identity in the digital age. The version of ourselves we present, the version people fall for, and the uneasy moment when those two things collide. Josh’s mask isn’t just a device—it’s a boundary, a protection, and a distortion all at once. And Aly’s attraction to it raises questions that feel surprisingly relevant—about projection, about control, about how easily fantasy can become something we start to believe in.
It also doesn’t shy away from the messier undercurrents. Trauma sits quietly beneath both characters, shaping the way they connect, the way they protect themselves, and the way they respond to each other. But rather than using that trauma as spectacle, the story turns it into something more reflective—something that asks what people do with their pasts once they realise they don’t have to carry them alone.
That balance is where Lights Out really works. It’s provocative without being hollow, intense without becoming exhausting, and self-aware enough to understand exactly what it’s doing. It doesn’t try to sanitise the darker edges of its premise, but it also doesn’t mistake darkness for depth.
If anything, the book’s real strength is how readable it is. It moves quickly, it’s often unexpectedly funny, and it has that rare quality of being both indulgent and thoughtful at the same time. It’s the kind of story that feels easy to fall into—and slightly difficult to explain once you’re there.
For readers who are curious about dark romance but wary of something too heavy, this sits in an interesting middle ground. It’s bold, yes—but it’s also warm, engaging, and far more emotionally grounded than it first appears.
And that’s what stays—not the shock of it, but the way it quietly reframes what a story like this can be.
Book Details
Title — Author Lights Out — Navessa Allen
Paperback ISBN: 978-1638932239 (Zando / Slowburn edition; may vary by region)
eBook ISBN: 978-1638932246
Genre: Dark Romance, Contemporary Romance, Romantic Suspense, Erotic Romance
Tropes: Masked stalker; morally grey MMC; he falls first; black cat x golden retriever dynamic; obsessive love; online identity/parasocial connection; consensual non-consent roleplay; hidden identity; protective hero; trauma-bonded intimacy; found safety in danger; hacker/cybersecurity hero; nurse heroine; “touch her and die”
Publisher: Zando (Slowburn imprint; distributed internationally, varies by region)
Series: Into Darkness Series (Book 1)
Formats Available: Paperback, Hardcover (including special/collector editions), eBook, Audiobook
Audiobook Narrators: Jacob Morgan, Elena Wolfe
Release Date: August 6, 2024
Page Count: 416 pages (varies slightly by edition)
Where to Buy: Available via Amazon AU, Booktopia, Dymocks, QBD Books, KMart Australia, and independent bookstores across Australia
Danielle Robinson is a literary critic, writer, and interior curator whose work explores the relationship between literature, home, and heritage through a reflective lens. Holding a double degree in philosophy and theology, she brings academic rigour to her writing alongside a cultivated, deeply aesthetic sensibility. Danielle is an internationally published, multi-award-winning makeup artist and former fashion stylist and interior stager, with over 30 years’ experience shaping visual and cultural spaces. She reads widely and rigorously, reviewing more than 200 books each year as both an ARC reader and commissioned critic. Through her platform and podcast, Silk & Sentences, she considers literature not simply as text, but as atmosphere—something that informs the way we live, curate, and remember. She writes from her meticulously curated rural Queensland home, where she lives with Alex, her husband of 33 years, her dog, Oscar, and surrounded by family & close friends at every opportunity.
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