dark, smutty books aren't your thing... yet

Dark Romance books are a subcategory of the romance genre.
‍
Books labeled as "dark romance" deal with dark, heavy subject content that often require trigger warning lists.
‍Do not read these books if you cannot handle the material.
The main characters often have their morals skewed, a.k.a. "morally gray/pitch black."
‍Where the red of a heart is also the red of the blood spilled for anyone looking at you the wrong way.

real life red flags are dark romance green flags

Dark Romance is also an umbrella term for the type of tropes it harbors. Popular tropes include:

any sane person would tell you to run from the characters you'd meet in these books... but being sane is so boring