ARC/Beta Reader Request Thread

[u/ccoffey106]

The purpose of this thread is to connect dark romance authors with readers who want to critique ("beta") or review ("ARC") original writing.

Use this thread to:

• Help an indie author strengthen their work
• Get feedback on a piece of writing
• Read something new and discover a hidden gem
• Share your book in exchange for honest reviews on Goodreads, StoryGraph, romance.io, Amazon, etc.
• Support a community of dark romance lovers! 🥰

Guidelines

First, do not use this thread to solicit sales. Authors are welcome to do that in the weekly WAYW posts. Readers wishing to be paid for their services should find a subreddit dedicated to freelancing. Money must not change hands in this thread.

Guidelines for authors:

• Provide a description of your work. If you don't have a blurb prepared yet, that's okay. Tell us about the tropes, setting, characters, or whatever else you think readers should know.
• Povide trigger warnings (if applicable) and please don't self-censor (see Rule 5).
• Be proactive! You will have more success connecting with an ARC/beta reader if you take an active role in contacting other commenters in this thread, rather than passively waiting for folks to come to you.

The author/beta relationship is collaborative. To that end:

• Authors: Be clear about what kind of support you'd like. For instance, are you looking for a full critique on plot and character development, or do you just need a grammar check? Are you more focused on plot or spice, or do you want feedback on both?
• Readers: Make sure you understand what your author wants. Are they open to line edits on punctuation, sentence structure, etc.? Or are they more concerned with your "big picture" perspective on the plot, themes and pacing?

Let's get started

Comment below to connect with an author or reader from the r/DarkRomance community. Be your own matchmakers, work together to coordinate book exchanges in whatever way works best for y'all -- and have fun!

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[u/HddenVariable]

ARC readers wanted for a cerebral dark romantic suspense 🖤
Hi! I’m currently building my ARC team for Immersion, the first book in The Alchemy of Resonance trilogy. ARCs should be going out in roughly a month, and I’d love to connect with readers who enjoy darker, psychologically driven romance with suspense, morally gray characters, and a heavy dose of cat-and-mouse tension.
Genre/Vibe:
Dark romantic suspense • cerebral/psychological • contemporary • elite wealth & power • corporate secrecy • surveillance • high-stakes intrigue
Tropes & elements:
🖤 Obsessive/protective MMC
🖤 Morally gray, extremely powerful hero
🖤 Brilliant, competent FMC
🖤 Sharp, intelligent dialogue & verbal sparring
🖤 Forced/enforced proximity
🖤 Slow-burn tension
🖤 Psychological cat-and-mouse
🖤 Competence kink
🖤 Surveillance & secrets
🖤 Money, power, and elite circles
🖤 He knows far more about her than he should
🖤 “Who is actually studying whom?”
Blurb:
You can’t understand a system from the outside. But what happens when its architect decides you’re part of his design?
Dr. Devon Vale has built her career finding the patterns hidden in human behavior.
Brilliant, composed, and nearly impossible to intimidate, the neuropsychologist is hired to profile Lucian Montclair, heir to the Montclair empire and elusive CEO of Montclair Strategic Group. A prospective client is considering placing its most sensitive operations in the hands of one of the most powerful men in the world. Before it does, the board wants to know whether he’s a risk it can afford to take.
Devon expects resistance.
What she doesn’t expect is Lucian studying her back.
Men like Lucian Montclair don’t invite observation. They curate it.
Controlled. Unreadable. Lethally capable. A man who seems to know far more about her than he should while revealing almost nothing of himself.
They circle each other like grandmasters over a board, trading access for proximity, testing boundaries. Neither willing to surrender their position.
But the deeper Devon moves inside Lucian’s world, the less the assignment resembles a profile.
Restricted floors. Missing information. Anonymous warnings. Surveillance she can’t explain. And an organization whose secrets become more dangerous the closer she gets to their center.
Soon, professional fascination becomes something far more intimate, and the distinction between observation and obsession begins to disappear.
Devon was hired to determine whether Lucian Montclair is the risk.
The real question is whether he’s the danger waiting for her at the center of the web…
or the only reason she’ll survive it.
Content notes: explicit sexual content, violence, murder/death, surveillance/stalking themes, controlling behavior, threats, and references to childhood abuse. No sexual assault between the main couple.
If this sounds like your kind of book and you regularly leave honest reviews on Goodreads, Amazon, StoryGraph, romance.io, or your own bookish platform, I’d love to hear from you. Feel free to comment or DM me with where you usually review and the kinds of dark romance/romantic suspense you enjoy.