Wow, Lady Hell was truly a wild ride!! While there was some repetitiveness, the gothic horror vibes were immaculate. Very gruesome and gory. A strange story, but highly entertaining! I look forward to reading Lord Death!

I really thought I would love this, but it just wasn't for me. I was expecting a gothic romance, perhaps some light horror. I wasn't expecting the smut. The writing could have done with a little work as well, a lot of word repetition.

I had to DNF this after about 35%. The writing was not for me, I found it very repetitive. Whay the hang up on how people look? Too much focus on the wrong perspectives, in my opinion.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the free eARC in exchange for my honest opinions.

A beautifully crafted, eerie love story that lingers like a ghost. If you are fan of Crimson Peak or gothic genre I highly recommend this book. It’s queer friendly as well.

Really enjoyable! Belle finds herself the the wife to royalty. its a marriage of convenience in a strange manor, to a strange husband. he allows her freedoms that she wouldnt normally take, but finds herself in a trouble situation that doesn't include him. Bramwell has secrets, he's not interested in sex and just needs a wife for appearances. there was a lot going on in this. horror, romance, fantastical elements all wrapped up in a gothic feeling story.

the head hopping was a little jarring for me. you'd be in one characters brain one moment and another's the next with no clear distinction. the chapter art was cool. the menage was hot.

trigger warnings for anorexia among many other things.

I received this ARC from netgalley but all my thoughts are my own.

Lady Hell is a haunting blend of gothic horror and dark fantasy that immerses readers in a world of eerie atmospheres and unsettling mysteries. Alyssa Page crafts a narrative rich in vivid imagery, bringing Hellthorne Manor to life as a character in its own right. The novel delves into themes of power, control, and the supernatural, with Belle's journey offering a compelling exploration of fear and resilience.

I really enjoyed this!! GOTHIC, HORROR. LUSTY. MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE. Belle finds herself being married into royalty to a strange man from even stranger manor. He gives her freedoms that she isn't used too which leads her into a sticky situation. Bramwell has secrets, isn't interested in sex and seems to only want a wife for appearances sake. Loved the gothic feel of this novel. So dreamy....

DNFed at 20%

This book, first of all, has an audience, as evidenced by the numerous 4-5 star ratings on both goodreads and storygraph. However, that audience does not include me.

Based on the synopsis, Lady Hell promises a gothic horror-esk plot that promises suspense, terror, and questioning around faith. Such promises are all but made void within the novel’s first quarter.

The third person perspective jumps from one character to another, both main and supporting, without purpose and in the first three chapters glosses over an entire 6 months of plot wherein Belle, we assume, arrived and grew accustomed to her new home. In addition, what replaces these pivotal moments which might’ve built Belle’s character beyond her initial introduction are a series of intimate scenes between Belle and Florence (a member of her husband’s household).

Though the relationship has potential in subverting the trope of the dark, powering Lord earning the affection of his younger bride, the story throws us into their relationship long after it has begun, losing the opportunity for us to connect to either Florence or her romance with Belle. While I understand and recognise the appeal for intimate/smut scenes in books, I found the application of them here to be sudden and unnecessary.

All of this, combined with a writing style that favours repetitive and excessive descriptions of characters, events and settings, made the book just too difficult and boresome to continue reading.

I really love the cover and was so excited to read this. Unfortunately the story never really took off for me and was a hard read to get through.

Thank you NetGalley, and Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op for providing me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!

I wanted to love this—the concept, the premise, were all perfect (mff poly? cmon…)—but alas :( It has the gothic, the dare-I-say whimsy, and perhaps this is someone’s favourite but simply not mine.

The POV jumped too strangely for me to immerse myself well. You would begin in one character’s, receiving their thoughts and feelings, until for only a paragraph when you are given another character’s.
This is also a second-world story, set in the world of Elantry, which seemed… unnecessary and half-baked? This story would have done just as well in a real-world historical European setting—in fact it would’ve done better in my opinion. The characters often use our familiar phrases: fucking hell, pissed off, etc, in a second-world story that seems to be heavily taken from the 1800s?

I unfortunately had a really hard time getting into this book. I wanted to enjoy it but I just couldn’t

Thank you to NetGalley for sending me this arc!!!

We follow a young women Belle and her arranged marriage to a men she doesn’t know. The man- Bramwell Hellthorne, is full of secrets. The house starts to feel and look eerie to Belle and her lovers. Could they survive in the end?

Unfortunately, I did not enjoy this book has much as I wanted too. The premise of the book sounded so good, however, the story was very slow and boring. I found it challenging to connect with Lady Belle and the other characters. Additionally, I felt the romance developed too quickly and lacked depth, which made it less enjoyable for me.

Usually I start my reviews with a quote, but since the entire book is written so god damn beautiful and poetic, it's impossible to choose one.

Lady Hell goes straight to my favorites shelve. What a dark, sexy and gruesome book this is! A mansion haunted by a portret of a demoness, a poor girl married into royalty, asexuality and poly romance reps, a bastard boy with deathmagic, THE ONDODEN??? Obsessed.

All of the characters are perfectly sculpted within these pages, along with Hellthorne Mansion. It felt like the house itself was a seperate character, thats how alive the horror became at certain points. As soon as Belle steps down that basement, the story twists and turns into the most gruesome, amazing and bad-ass ending i've ever read.

From the first sentence to the last, this Gothic story managed to capture my attention. I cannot wait to see where the story goes from here!

(Review also posted on Goodreads & Instagram)

This had such promise!! Gothic, slightly flowery prose, arranged marriage, creepy house. Then the plot just kind of fell apart and the book lost the gothic creepiness and just was sex scene after sex scene. Meh, I was hoping for gothic horror, not romance that has a little bit of spooky in it.

DNF. I got almost 100 pages into this and still found I wasn't enjoying myself. This truly might get better after that, I'm just not someone who wants to continue a book I'm not loving. One big thing that irritated me is how often it's mentioned how tiny Belle is. Over and over the author makes sure we realize how bony, lithe, and small she is. It was just SO unnecessary in my opinion. The vibes were beginning to get a little creepy but I had no desire to keep reading. Thank you Netgalley for the ARC!

🕯️ GOTHIC. LUSTY. DISORIENTING. 💀 A dark manor, strange rituals, and tangled desires set the stage for a gothic tale full of atmosphere and ambition. When Belle is forced into an arranged marriage with the enigmatic Lord Hellthorne, she finds herself trapped in a crumbling estate where the walls whisper, the dead linger, and love might be the most dangerous force of all. While it didn’t fully come together for me, I was intrigued by the world it tried to build and the emotions it aimed to stir.

This one was a tough read for me, and not in the way I hoped. I went into Lady Hell genuinely excited. The cover, the gothic premise, the eerie manor and supernatural threads... it all sounded like something I’d love. But I struggled to stay grounded in the story, and while I kept hoping it would eventually click, it just never quite did.

The writing style is richly descriptive, which fits the gothic tone, but the prose often swung between overly flowery and oddly simplistic. There were moments that caught me—lines or imagery that worked—but just as often, a beautifully built scene would be undercut by clunky or stilted dialogue that didn’t feel natural or emotionally grounded.

One thing that consistently pulled me out of the story was the way characters were referred to and spoken about. There was a heavy reliance on generic terms like “woman” and “girl,” often used in place of actual names or deeper character insight, and it started to feel impersonal and repetitive. That same repetition showed up in the prose too, particularly in how Belle’s body was described. Words like “bony,” “small,” and “lithe” came up again and again, even in scenes where they didn’t feel emotionally relevant or necessary. She’s described as having a “tiny voice,” and at one point, after an intimate scene, she’s referred to as “the tiny girl” and “little redheaded girl”—moments that felt especially unsettling in context. That kind of language was one of the things that crossed a threshold for me, pushing past characterization into something that felt infantilizing and uncomfortable.

This became hard to ignore because a large part of the story fixates on Belle’s smallness: her frame, her voice, her presence; and while the book does address her disordered eating, the repeated descriptions felt excessive to the point of discomfort. There’s a line between acknowledging a character’s illness and unintentionally romanticizing the symptoms, and this sometimes tipped into the latter. It left me wondering what the intention was, and if the weight of that storyline might have landed better with more interiority and nuance.

On top of that, the frequent shifts in perspective were disorienting. There were times I wasn’t sure whose internal voice I was in, which made already-fragile emotional arcs feel scattered rather than immersive. The combination of these elements (tonal inconsistencies, unnatural dialogue, repetitive language, and abrupt POV changes) ultimately made it harder for me to stay grounded in the world or to form a real connection with the characters.

Romance also plays a major role here, but I had trouble buying into it. Relationships seemed to form quickly, and much of the emotional language leaned heavily on lust while calling it love. The sex scenes themselves were vividly written, but often felt abrupt or disconnected from the characters’ arcs. The tone often shifted quickly, from horror to lust to emotional trauma, which made it harder for any one moment to fully land. I think I was hoping for something more emotionally layered or slow-burning... especially in a story where intimacy and trauma intersect so closely.

The plot itself felt tangled. There are so many moving pieces: religious mythology, demonic forces, memory loss, secret pregnancies, murder; that instead of building suspense, I often felt lost. Major reveals sometimes came out of nowhere or lacked the grounding needed to make them feel impactful. Characters often experienced intense events (death, hauntings, revelations) without much emotional follow-up, which left those moments feeling hollow. That sense of disorientation pulled me out of the story more than once.

All that said, I really do see the creative vision behind this. Alyssa Page clearly had a bold concept and a strong aesthetic in mind, and there’s something compelling about the world she’s reaching for. For me personally, the execution didn’t come together in a way that fully worked, but I can see the pieces that might really click for other readers. I found myself wishing for more emotional depth, a clearer sense of the world’s structure, and more time spent developing the relationships and stakes. Still, I’d be interested to see how her voice grows over time, because there’s real imagination here, and I think her future work could resonate more with me.

I think Lady Hell might still work for readers who enjoy gothic romance with a heavy dose of supernatural drama, dark family secrets, and lust-driven relationships. If you’re drawn to atmospheric settings, morally ambiguous characters, and stories that lean into intensity over clarity, this might be worth checking out.

Thank you to Purple Fern Publishing and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

DNF

This was honestly not at all what I expected it to be. I thought the horror aspect was going to be very present but I read about 33% and it was lacking.
The writing style was nice though hence why I continued for so long

I love Gothic and I did enjoy the Gothic elements of this book even though it leans more towards horror at times.

The relationship between Belle and her lovers was well written, especially for someone who is not exposed to polyamory.

However, I thought that there was too much world building that really didn't add to the plot. There could have been half the amount and I would still know what was going on. A lot of the detailed exposition wasn't touched again and seemed redundant by the end.

The writing being from an omnicsient narrator also left it feeling slightly inconsistent and it took a while for me to get used to as I am not used to that kind of narration.

For my first horror book…Truly not bad. It was acutely gory with a very much hell ish romance. Stepping outside my usual genres I admit I was apprehensive, but I was left pretty satisfied in the end. The only things I have issues with was the repetition - this made it a struggle sometimes. I needed more show than tell in regards to the love triangle and the development of the relationships, otherwise I can't really connect with the book. Nonetheless, the elements of witchcraft and evil were done well, the characters and the dynamics needed more work!

This was my first true horror in years, and my my, it did not disappoint! Magic, murder and mayhem abound, set in an unknown historical time in a fictional kingdom, the plot and characters kept me hooked throughout. I don't know why I was surprised in having questions left at the end of the book, since this is part 1 of 2, but I am sure the second will satisfy all of our curiosities. And while the plot is spooky, horrific and gory, I enjoyed the romance budding between the trio just as much. I will say though, I felt the female characters slightly tedious in that they seemed insecure and emotionally immature, but to be fair, they are young women. I also would have wanted to know the origin of Rose's anorexia, since it's mentioned so much throughout the book.