Look, I need to address something upfront: this is not my usual territory. Not even close. Penelope Douglas writes dark romance, and the last time I voluntarily picked up a romance novel was... never. But here's how it happened - Linda left her Audible playing on the kitchen speaker while she was making dinner last week, and I walked in during what turned out to be a genuinely tense scene involving an abandoned hotel and some seriously unhinged characters. I stood there holding a bag of dog food for a solid three minutes before I realized I was hooked. So I stole the book. (She still doesn't know.)
Let me cut to the chase: Hideaway is not the book I expected. It's better and worse than I thought, sometimes in the same chapter.
An Abandoned Hotel, a Prison Sentence, and... Wait, This Is a Romance?
The setup actually reads like something from my thriller shelf. Kai Mori is fresh out of a three-year prison stretch for a crime he'd commit again - that's a character hook I can respect. Banks is hiding in the shadows of this decrepit hotel called The Pope, guarding secrets about a hidden twelfth floor and a mysterious guest who never checked in and never checks out. There's a Devil's Night tradition that sounds like purge-lite for rich kids gone wrong. Strip away the steamy scenes and you've got a genuine mystery-thriller skeleton underneath the romance. The closest I've come to that kind of genre mashup working this well was Last Days of Night, which hides a genuinely tense legal thriller underneath what sounds on the surface like a historical biography — different shelf, same trick.
But here's what surprised me: Douglas doesn't phone in the suspense elements. The cat-and-mouse dynamic between Kai and Banks kept me engaged through nearly fifteen hours of audio. When Kai says "my house is on the hill - so many ways in, and good luck finding your way out," that's not just flirting. There's actual menace there. The power dynamics shift constantly, and I found myself trying to figure out who was really hunting whom.
The pacing, though - and this is where it lost me at times - runs hot and cold. There are stretches in the middle where the story pumps the brakes for extended romantic tension that had me checking how much time was left in the chapter. At 14 hours and 51 minutes, this is a serious commitment. Some of those hours earned their keep. Some didn't.
Two Narrators, Two Very Different Results
Jeremy York handles Kai's chapters, and Tatiana Sokolov takes Banks. The dual-narrator setup works conceptually - you always know whose head you're in without any confusion. Sokolov is the stronger performer here. She gives Banks this wounded-but-dangerous edge that sells the character's survival instincts. When Banks is cornered and defiant, Sokolov's delivery actually had Ranger lifting his head off his bed. That dog has good instincts about vocal tension.
York is... fine. He's improved from the previous book in this series apparently, and his deeper inflection for Kai works for the brooding-ex-con thing. But there are moments where Kai is supposed to be genuinely threatening and York sounds more like a guy politely declining seconds at dinner. The menace doesn't always land. I bumped the speed to 1.25x (my standard anyway) and it actually helped - tightened up the delivery and gave both narrators a bit more urgency.
No sound effects, no music, no production tricks. Just two voices and the story. Clean audio throughout, which I appreciate. Nothing pulls me out of a book faster than random background noise or inconsistent levels.
The Part Where I Admit Something
I didn't expect to care about these characters. Kai's prison backstory, the way he's rebuilt himself into someone harder and more honest than the rich kid he used to be - that transformation rang true for me. I've watched young soldiers go through something similar. Not prison, but deployment changes people in ways that aren't always bad. Sometimes the person who comes back is the person they were supposed to be all along. Douglas gets that psychology right, even wrapped in a romance package I wouldn't normally touch.
Banks is trickier. She's loyal to a fault, literally willing to betray everyone else to protect one person. In my line of work, that kind of singular loyalty is either the most valuable asset on your team or the biggest vulnerability. Douglas makes her both.
The "mature themes" warning is earned. Several times over. I'll leave it at that.
Who's This Actually For (And Why a Retired Colonel Is Not the Target Demo)
If you're already in the Devil's Night series, you know what you're getting and this delivers. If you like dark romance with actual plot architecture underneath the heat, this is a solid entry. The mystery elements - the hotel, the hidden floor, the shadowy figure - give the story real stakes beyond "will they or won't they."
If you need your thrillers straight with no romance chaser, this probably isn't your mission. And if narrator voices are make-or-break for you, audition a sample first - York's gentler approach is a legitimate complaint from some listeners.
Ranger's Debrief
Worth your time? Here's the debrief: I went in skeptical and came out... not converted, but genuinely entertained for most of fifteen hours. That's more than I can say for some books in my actual preferred genres. The thriller framework is strong enough to carry readers who aren't romance regulars, and the dual narration mostly works. Bump the speed up, settle in, and don't tell anyone from my old unit I reviewed this.
Ranger slept through the romance parts but perked up during the suspense. Smart dog.
