The Darkest Ones — Kitty Thomas

A bundle of Kitty Thomas's darkest titles (contemporary dark standalones): Comfort Food (originally published in 2010, the OG dark romance novel), The Game Maker, and Big Sky.Comfort Food:HER:The first day of my captivity was like being born... or dying. They're both kind of the same thing with the long tunnel and the bright light at the end. Maybe it wasn't like either, actually. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong because for me that day all there was, was darkness.HIM:Today I found something beautiful and decided to break it. I wanted to see it shatter in my hand and crumble at my feet. Her name is Emily Vargas. She's bright and educated and stunning. Articulate. She'll want someone to talk to her.The Game Maker:I was too isolated. I was about to be evicted. I made a final desperate call to the man who ruined my life, but he didn't come for me.Someone else did.And then there was Seven. When I first woke in the cell, I thought he was my captor, but he is a pawn, like me.Seven is beautiful and kind. I want him so much I can barely breathe. He wants to protect me from our captor, but he can't.We are both locked inside a game neither of us can ever hope to win, and even though it's wrong, I'm starting to want both men, not just the good one... the monster as well.Big Sky:Veronica Cason lives in a small apartment with no clear view of the sky. It's uncertain which might crush her first: her debt or the buildings squeezed in so tight that they surround her like ominous sentinels. She can't breathe in the city. Her success is a lie, and her debt is coming to collect her — unless someone else gets there first.When a stranger offers her a job at a ranch, it feels like salvation, but it could also mean her death if his motives aren't pure. Which door has the tiger behind it? The claustrophobia of the city or ranch life under an open sky?