Dolls & Daggers by D.L. Darby is a vigilante romance centered around Dove and Wren. By day, Dove is a reporter who writes about Doll, her alter ego. Wren just joined the team with aspirations of also writing about the Doll, but Dove ain’t having it. This spawns an enemies-to-lovers romance between the two. Their situationship gets even more complicated when Wren suspects Dove and The Doll are one in the same. Think of it as a spicy take on Superman and Clark Kent, but with a female lead.
This brings me to one of my favorite aspects of the story: the reversal of tropes and gender roles. We’ve seen a few books feature female serial killers, but Darby took that concept and expanded it. The female serial killer becomes the female vigilante with an alter ego and is the dominant personality in the book. Wren, our male lead, is our sensitive character and becomes sort of our damsel in distress. This creates a very interesting dynamic that we don’t often see in contemporary romance, and I welcome it wholeheartedly. You could sort of say, Wren is the Lois Lane to Dove’s Superman. I think that’s a fair comparison.
Introducing a concept like this takes some clever writing, and Darby brings it with style. It’s very subtle, but you can see a reversal, and it’s not done in a way that could be considered insulting. Just because Wren is our “damsel,” he isn’t a weak or incompetent character. On the other hand, Dove may be the superhero of the story, but she still feels those emotions, even if she doesn’t want to show them. This leaves room for growth in both characters throughout the novel. Darby also does a great job in balancing the A and B stories. While we do get to see a little of what The Doll does, the story is mainly focused on the relationship between Wren and Dove and how they navigate her vigilantism.
The audiobook is produced by Blue Nose Audio with narration by Lucy Rivers and Aaron Shedlock. Lucy Rivers has narrated numerous books, but she may be most well-known, at least to me, for her role as Sloan in Butcher and Blackbird. Dove is a bubbly character, and Lucy brings her to life perfectly. Her voice really helped me visualize the character as I was listening. Aaron Shedlock did a fantastic job playing the part of Wren. He had this cadence that reminded me of a character from old private eye film noir, like Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade. I believe the only other production I heard with Shedlock was Done and Dusted, and I loved him in that as well.
The Dolls & Daggers audiobook will go on sale November 13th. It will be available on Audible and the Blue Nose Audio app. This is one that I would recommend to fans of both romance and vigilante crime stories.