I enjoyed this book. It has a different magic system than i have ever encountered before. I loved all the different creatures this book mentioned. I have never read a bully to lovers paranormal romance before but I enjoyed this one. I enjoyed how different witches were from the usual books I read.

Thank you to the publisher/NetGalley for letting me review this book!

Alright, first off the dedication was top-tier! It will go down as a favorite for me. That being said, while I did enjoy this book I did feel like it was missing some key elements.

The synopsis definitely tells you what this book will be about before you even read. It is enticing for a reason. The only part I question is the morally-greyness of the MC. She seems to only do things in retaliation to others not because she wants to do them for herself automatically. Hopefully that will be remedied in the next installment. While I do critique that, the rest of the characters are highly morally grey. It is amazing. The Dramoine vibes were high key killing me and I was loving it. I will say that although this is 'spicy' I felt like it could have taken it farther.

The plot was not on the mainstage for most of this book so the story seems to slowdown here and there. I think this would have been better if it had a little more action. The smut it okay, I personally wouldn't say it was the spiciest for myself but for others it might be. Some of the scenes kind of felt forced but did at least add to the characterization and the plot.

One part I highly enjoyed was the found-family type of trope this book was developing. I wish we had seen more interactions between all of the members. I didn't understand how the parents fit into this, it was vague or at least not completely developed. This might be because it will come to light later in the series but as of right now it left a lot of questions unanswered.

Overall I think this series has a lot of potential and that anyone who enjoys fanfiction, morally grey couples, etc. will enjoy this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for my ARC of this novel

Going into this book I had pretty high expectations considering that the description drew comparisons to both Harry Potter and Ninth House. I've got a mortal weakness for dark atmospheres in novels as well as morally grey characters so I was very excited to see what House of Pain had to offer.

First I'll start with the positive. I enjoyed reading about our female MC, Alecto. She had wits, was cruel, and played the underdog of the story. She was an easily likable and I found myself rooting for her considering her disadvantage against her other classmates (her heritage as a half witch).

With that said, I think she underdelivered in terms of being a morally grey MC. Even when she was cruel, it was always in retaliation of someone else's actions or in an attempt to be respected by her peers. I wanted to see some dark actions that were motivated solely by her own character.

The relationship between Alecto and our other MC, Blaze, was pretty standard. It fit almost all of the checkmarks for the classic bully/angry romance dynamic. He was a dick to her for no reason at first and then slowly begins to develop feelings for her along the way. That type of dynamic is just not my cup of tea and I felt like I'd read their storyline many times before within other novels. (While writing my review I noticed that the book description does mention the bully-romance dynamic so that's my mistake for not noticing that before reading).

The aspect that was hardest for me to get onboard with was just how intensely this reminded me of a Wattpad novel. The story line was definitely secondary to character and relationship development, and yet I felt like I wasn't shocked by anything that was thrown my way in terms of relationship dynamics. At times I felt that in place of action there was just a bunch of sex scenes thrown in, which is great, but only if the plot and action are developing as well.

Overall, I think I was just the wrong type of person for this novel. If you're into fanfic and dark academia then I think this will suit you perfectly.

Oh my goodness! “House of Pain” is, in a word, enthralling.

“House of Pain” is a dark academia, enemies-to-lovers (-to-enemies…?) novel that is the first in its series. The author compares it to Harry Potter, and while I saw glimpses of that, I also felt like there were pieces of Crescent City in there, too. The world building is intense, and you’re thrust right into the world from the first page. There is not a lot of backstory, which is what I struggled with in the beginning. However, once you let go of the need to know and choose to enjoy is, in my opinion, when the story truly shines.

One of my favorite tropes is found family. On “House of Pain” the found family is incredibly well done. Despite being five very close friends, there are multiple times throughout the book where you can’t tell if they actually enjoy one another, much less care about the rest of the group. They call themselves the “Inner Circle”, though most of the storyline follows Alecto, our FMC, and Blaze, our MMC. Jolene was a close favorite of mine, and Val I went back and forth on. Is the good, is she evil? Even after finishing I don’t think this question was answered— and I LOVE that! As a reader, many of the questions are left for us to interpret, which made the story so enjoyable to me.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5089357314

This book started off slow for me. I really enjoyed it but the world building could of been more and grander. I feel this would be a great novella for a bigger story line.

I really enjoyed this book! All of the characters are definitely “bad” or at least morally grey, but they are witches and that is what is expected of them so I don’t mind that at all.

The main character is half witch but just as evil as the rest of them which I love. This book is a mix of enemies to lovers spice, as well as magical college where there is an ongoing competition to steal an item from the other houses. It felt like a good balance of plot and spice to me.

Keep in mind there are definitely some references to darker topics, but trigger warnings are listed in the opening pages, and many of them were just barely referenced. Overall I really enjoyed it and will definitely continue the series.

House of Pain is the bitterest of dark chocolate cake laced with the sour tang of blackberries and raspberries—which is totally something I would make as a fall desert. Okay, fine. I already did—but can you blame me? It was just as deliciously sinful as this book! And this is definitely a guilty pleasure read given the dark content and anti-hero cast. If I had to make this into a movie, it would be low-lighting with lots of red.

The setting was dark, the characters were purposely not the most likeable and were morally charcoal. The best way to describe them was vicious—but what do you expect in a dark academia novel where the main characters are witches and warlocks from the House of Snakes whose magic mainly comes from sex and other more devious means? They also tend to use forbidden forms of magic in their pursuit to win “The Game”, a yearly competition amongst the magic Houses (think frat houses but co-ed) that is akin to capture the flag, but replace the flag with the House’s Book of Shadows. Witches have died in pursuit of glory during the game, and houses will go to truly insidious means to win.

Naturally, being a New Adult, this book has a lot of sexual content and darker themes. The main romance is a bully romance between Alecto and Blaze. Alecto is somewhat of an outsider in the core group of the House of Snakes, lead by Val. Alecto is considered somewhat prudish at the beginning, but we learn she has her reasons aside from the obvious as to why she doesn’t take part in the public displays of sex magic that the House of Snakes sometimes demonstrate. Blaze is a powerful warlock with hidden family troubles that cause him to lash out and bully. His current favorite target is Alecto. He does some truly heinous things people, but so does everyone else at the Venefica Academy. However, he discovers that not all of his passionate feelings towards Alecto are hate-based. And Alecto has desires that are Blaze-based that she wished she didn’t have. They fight their feelings throughout, but grim truth is that sometimes you can’t fight against some cravings, no matter how bad they may be for you.

Over the course of House of Pain, loyalties are tested, vengeful demons are unleashed, and powerful magic is used in insidious ways. This is a dark, dark book, but also very good. It’s like watching a fast, sexy train wreck happen. By the end, you’re grateful it’s fiction but you’re also not done with this world. And it’s not done with you.

At first I got to say I felt like there was a novella or book I had missed cause you are thrown into this world with no boring how she and all the other characters came to be. Still not to sure if I disliked that part or loved it. The world is extremely believable and the characters are grey which is pretty awesome cause she owns she is a bitch and doing some of her actions to survive are wrong and she hates them but admits not to invites death or ruin. The twisted relationships with the parents and how they control them and ends up with the mystery of what happened to her mom and her mothers past relationship with the other parents and how twisted the whole world is makes me definitely buy this book to reread what I have missed but put this author as one of my new favorites and has me looking for the next one in the series

Thank you to NetGalley and Karolina Wilde for my arc in exchange for my unbiased review.

OKAY. So "House of Pain" is the first in the Precious Villains series and we essentially are following a young woman and her group of friends as they try to make it through what is basically magic college.

I decided to request this one because I wanted something light and quick to read and reading the blurb, I thought this would be perfect to pick up in-between grad work and teaching. BOY was I wrong.

Now, if I were younger and still read fanfic often, I'd probably like this but unfortunately, I'm 30 and have no patience with cringey dialogue, NLOG characterizations, and uncomfortably written sex scenes.

This book was absolutely not for me but I know that there's a whole market for books like this and related like Sarah J. Maas' A Court of Thrones and Roses, Zodiac Academy, etc.

Lol, this book.⁠..
First, the names. In one camp you had the likes of Blaze, Rogue Smolder, Alecto; in the other you had Jolene, Val and Gabe. Their families live in places like the Upper East Side but they go to a witch school that’s close enough to jaunt home for weekend family parties but they’re in their own world…it was confusing at times. And Blaze plays ‘rockey’. That’s right. Not hockey. ROCKEY. It felt a bit like the author wanted to create another world with unique names and locations, but then also wanted them to exist amongst us mortals and the result was, well, rockey and Rogue Smolder.⁠
Despite the absolute cheesiness I found myself continuing to read. Wanting to know if these damn kids (who are way too advanced at sex than any actual 16 or 17 year old BY THE WAY) were going to win this competition and what secrets were going to come with it.⁠
It felt a bit like watching a B movie that you’re not sure if it’s good, but you can’t help but kinda like it. Will I read book two someday? Probably. My best advice if you pick this one up is to just accept it for what it is and enjoy the ride.

FOUR STARS

“You’re a fucking curse on my poor immortal soul, Black.”

House of Pain is book one in the Precious Villains Series by Karolina Wilde and it definitely set up this series to be amazing. This book was created with such good ideas, and I genuinely think the author did an amazing job putting them all together in this book. It has plots and subplots of, romance, found family, magic, school competition/game, and other surprises that keep being added within.

The characters were all so different yet well-developed which made this novel so much better to read since everyone had a different personality and didn’t all just mesh together. Our main characters all live in the House of Snakes which is said to be the best house to live within the academy. Think of it as Slytherin in power levels.

Alecto Black is one of the coolest most girl boss fmc I’ve ever read about. She puts up with ZERO drama or tricks which was so powerful of her. Alecto is a half-blooded witch but is also a legacy which means she comes from money AND power giving her a higher target level from other students. At some point in the book it is insinuated that she has some type of fatherly trauma, but it was never explored anymore besides the one chapter it was in, so I hope it’s developed more in the next book(s). Alecto is a super powerful and popular student but inside she is the sweetest character.

Meanwhile, Blaze Leveau is the epitome of a cruel bully male love interest but with an intense knowledge and skill level of magic. Blaze did some TERRIBLE things to Alecto but after everything he was always forgiven because of his undeniable charm. Even though he was this terrible seeming character I loved him so much. He was raised by a terrible father and therefore acts how he was raised. Blaze had development towards the end, and you could see when he was finally starting to open up and soften towards Alecto which just made me so happy.

The chemistry between these two was SO heavy I couldn’t get enough of it. Each time these two were thrown together it either ended very badly or very intense, in a good way… Alecto’s and Blaze’s banter was so witty and charming I just can’t get enough of them. The soft scenes between these two don’t happen often but when they do, I wanted to melt, they just made me want to cry but not because I was sad.
The storyline of this book was really interesting to me, and I couldn’t put this book down even though it was told from a third-person point of view. The dark academia vibes were unbeatable especially because there was also academic rival trope!!!

The whole premise of the plot is a game between the different houses of Venefica Academy. This game is very intense and only one house can win. The Snakes win every year, and this year is no different. Except this year, the Snakes want to try a new tactic which is considered a forbidden type of magic. The twist at the end due to this was not very surprising but still done very well. All the characters have to work together to steal the other houses books and protect their own at the same time.

I do feel like this book was more character based than plot driven but the mix between the two was good. While I do hope to see more of the plot progress in the next couple books I can’t complain about the romance since I do love all the character and romance quotes. I would like to see some more world building though because we didn’t seem to venture outside of the academy and characters real houses too much.

Overall, House of Pain is a good book to read if you’re in the mood for a enemies to lovers, dark academia, magical book! It was definitely worth the read and I cannot wait to read book two whenever it comes out.

A huge thank you to the Author, Publisher, and NetGalley for this eArc in exchange for an honest review!

Absolutely yes! I really enjoyed reading this novel. The characters were fun, it held my interest, and provided an escape from reality. I would definitely recommend!

If you read Zodiac Academy and found it to be too vanilla, this book is for you. It is as disturbing and twisted as the title suggests.

Alecto is a half witch and a member of the House of Snakes on a prestigious magic academy Venefica. For an academy there’s not much studying going on; most of the time the students are busy with The Game which’s general goal is to take down other Houses. That means shady deals with demons or other creatures from ‘Hel’ and lots of spells that require blood.

So. Much. Blood.

Speaking of which, I’d like to file a complaint:

At the beginning of the book there are two types of magic mentioned; blood magic and sex magic. So where is this sex magic?? Not a single sex magic scene (kissing doesn’t count), only the freakin’ blood all the time!

Next to all the blood there’s sort of a romance, heavily inspired by Tory and Darius from Zodiac, which will probably unfold in the next books. For now Alecto’s relationship with Blaze is extremely toxic, but that’s okay because pretty much every character in this book is toxic and malicious. Besides being toxic and hating each other doesn’t prevent them from sleeping together.

I won’t list all TW cause there are too many and they won’t fit in my review. But if you’re not squeamish, this book has it all; sex, magic, nightmarish monsters and lots of characters to hate.

Enjoy!

Thank you NetGalley and Xpresso Book Tours for the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

In House of Pain, the reader sees a person trying to survive college. Alecto is a half-breed witch, and she is bullied by Blaze, who obviously is very attractive and there is an attraction between them.

Overall, this story was a very interesting read. I loved the voice behind the main character and the diction of the narrative. It made it very easy to get sucked in and be entertained.

I love a morally grey heroine. They are my favorite kinds of heroine. The spice was really good throughout the story. It's a bully academia supernatural romance, and a lot of fun to read. It's like Zodiac Academy, Gossip Girl, and Harry Potter made a very smutty baby. I'm here for it and I'm ready for book 2!

Thanks for the eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

If you enjoy fanfic, morally gray characters, and dark academia this is for you.

I typically enjoy these things but this fell short for me. It was drawn out and read more like a fanfic rip off than a novel. I can’t say I would pick up another in the series if it’s released.

There are multiple trigger warnings so please check those before proceeding.

dnf on page 31

Young adult fantasy set at a school of magic. I really love that this comes with trigger warnings, and yes, the blurp tells you this has steamy content. I just assumed it means there would be one, two sex scenes in this book, I did not expect that the magic the main characters wield is based on sex magic. On the 31 pages I read, every single one contained references to genitalia and sexual encounters.

I am just the wrong kind of ace for this book.
I am sure this has readers who will appreciate it, but I am not one of them. Go find somebody else's review about this if you're still interested.

I will be honest, I did not expect to like this book. I expected a one-star review. When I initially requested this book, I was unaware of the trigger warnings, and there are several. The publisher and the author are upfront about this, which is nice. So, had I paid attention and known this was a bully romance, I would not have even requested it. However, surprisingly, romance was not my issue with this book.

Typically, I'm not too fond of bully romances because one party is terrible, and the other is not. However, in this book, damn near everyone is awful. So, for me, it never truly felt like a bully romance. It felt more like a darker, more severe enemies to lovers.

My overall issue with this book is the lack of worldbuilding and the overall lack of character development. Especially with the myriad of side characters.

You are thrown into a world of ruthless witches with a dark academic setting, where a "game" is a major plot point. However, you have no idea why they are even playing the game. There is a one-line explanation halfway through the overly long book. I never once felt invested in this plot. I didn't care what was happening because I had no idea why any of it was happening. This is sad because the world itself could have been amazing had it been developed at all. There is too much going on for none of it to be explained.

Most of the side characters are wasted, and honestly, there are too many. You have the teachers, the parents, the houses, the students, a demon, and some people from the town they are in.

If you like darker, Harry Potter fan fiction or Zodiac Academy, you may enjoy this. If you want more of your plot focused on fantasy elements rather than romance, I would skip this one.

Thanks to the author and NetGalley for this ARC.

The premise for this book was really interesting. Dark academia meets romance is always a win for me, but this unfortunately fell a little flat for me. It’s a very long book, and the plot felt secondary to the romance. This read like a Dramione fanfic, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but a lot of elements felt like it really was just Dramione with different character names. I think this book has a lot of potential, but it just wasn’t for me.

Definitely check the trigger warnings before reading!

Do you love facfic?
Do you love morally gray characters?
Do you love a dark academia setting?

This book is for you! I know it has been compared to harry potter meets gossip girl but I gotta say, its very zodiac academy for me!
Theres times when you hate the characters, times you love them, times you want them to success and times you want to wipe them off the page! But that just made it such a good rollercoaster. enjoyed this immensely and read it in about two days! I will definitely be continuing the series when the sequel comes out!

House of Pain is the first in a supernatural bully academia romance by author, Karolina Wilde. The blurb describes this as a cross between Harry Potter and Gossip Girl, but for me it felt more like an adult-version of Zodiac Academy and would probably be enjoyed by fans of that series. Be warned though this one is a little more adult, and there are a fair few steamy scenes (right from the get go). Told in alternating POV between our two main love interests and including some pictures which are truly amazing to look at. I enjoyed this one a lot. My only criticism would be that there isn’t a lot of world building and the main focus seems to be on the relationship between the two main characters. I’d love to have known more about the magical world and even about the house game, which is only briefly explained. There isn’t really a grand overarching storyline which entices you to keep reading. This book serves as a bit of an introduction I suppose to the world, characters and does set up some things but overall I’d like to have known more and had more depth in this one. I feel this would have taken it from I liked it, to I loved it. Given that it is the first book, I am hopeful that more will be explained in book 2 and going forward. This book does give us some great characters, some steamy romance which made it a lot of fun to read and great escapism. I will read book 2 just to see where else this series goes. Thank you to the author, publisher and Netgalley for an advanced copy of the book.