Danger’s Come A-Knocking….

Someone’s been watching Tana closely, but he’s a lot closer than she realizes. From intimate moments to lazy afternoons on the couch, he’s secretly seen it all – and fallen for her along the way. The problem is that someone else is watching too, and his obsession with Tana is a lot more dangerous. When a man claiming to be her front door enters her dreams to warn her about an imminent threat to her life, Tana initially chalks it up to her weird late-night snacks. But she rethinks things when her earnest visitor insists he’s also ready to protect her – in exchange for one hell of a favor. When Tana trades her best line of defense for an unlikely supernatural ally, the threat lurking beyond her apartment hallway starts getting desperate as the law closes in. Can her inhuman companion save her from the worst of humanity, or is it too late for both of them?

Content: Unhinged is a paranormal romance story that involves a human woman getting it on with her front door, which later turns into a guy. This story contains…a lot of stuff that would probably land me on the naughty list with bots from our benevolent overlords if I went into detail in this blurb. Please peek at the look inside for a better idea of what to expect, cool? 😉

Buy Links – Vera Valentine, Audible, amazon

Audio Review: 

Now that I’ve marked Unhinged on Goodreads as being read, it’s made my algorithm  all freaky-deaky. I’m getting recced Pounded by Poseidon, Hallowpeen, Forked. Stuffed by the Were-Turkey. All the gloriously weird shit. I mean, I’ve read and reviewed unicorn porn. I love that these stories exist because they’re fun in an otherwise unfun world, especially right now. The audiobook added a whole other dimension as I’ll mention below. The author is irreverent and definitely taking the piss while creating an unlikely erotic story. I loved that. Kudos, Vera Valentine.   

Okay. So wood you believe that this is a paranormal door shifter romance novella with extra kink? Hehe. It’s true!   

We’ve never done this on our blog before, read the same book together. It was fun behind the scenes. 

The Content Warnings: Truly, how could I walk past a book that had one of the narrators saying – This story contains door knob insertion + how many times cock is mentioned for the readers benefit. 

The Narration: It’s dual narration. The very best kind of narration. I love that the author thought about that. Richard Pendragon and Raven Wildewood (the perfect name for the story) walk a line between humorous and straight-laced and they made this story all the better for having listened to them.  

Tana lives in an apartment complex with a skeevy super and her solid oak front door – that solid oak part is very important to Door. He sees himself as her protector so her front door notices a few things that are going on. I had questions, apart from a sentient door whose father is Zeus. How?! And him being able to see her with her vibrator or whatever she’s doing. Was it purely the peephole? Could he see through his wood? Serious questions, people! 

Tana is good to her door.

She always made sure the lock had unlocked before she tried to enter, and never tried to force her way beyond a sticky catch in the deadbolt.

Richard Pendragon delivers the next line with a beautiful mix of absurdist and romance MMC.

“I am your faithful guardian and protector, nothing more, nothing less. I am your door, and I love you.”

The audiobook has… uhm, sounds 

Digging her fingers into the edge of the ottoman for leverage, Tana held her breath, rocking back to slowly impale herself on her front door. “Oh…god, it’s so big. I…I don’t know if I can…”

Fuck me dead. There is a creak of hinges as she fucks Door and a boiyoiyoing sound on the audiobook as she comes off his knob. Even now, as I’m typing this review, I’m snort laughing.

My thoughts are simple, I had fun listening to Unhinged. Is it great literary fiction? Fuck no. It’s not meant to be. Is it the usual paranormal/fantasy romance I read? Nope. Well, maybe occasionally as I confessed to unicorn porn. Did I enjoy it enough to share the experience with Cindi and type an OTDU review for our blog? Hell yes! 

~~*~~

E-Book Review:

In all the years of On Top Down Under’s existence, I can’t believe this is our very first buddy listen/read. And what a book to be our first. Look at Kazza’s above content warnings. Who wouldn’t want to read this amazing piece of literature? 😉 

Unhinged was one hell of a fun read. Poor Door has been secretly pining (get it? *snort*) over Tana since she moved into her apartment.

As a door, I didn’t know when I fell in love with Tana, only that I most assuredly was. It might have been the first time she laid her soft fingertips on the cool brass of my knob…

For the record, he’s oak, not pine, but I couldn’t help myself.

Door sees pretty much everything that goes on, including when Tana’s having a bit of one-on-one time with her little vibrating friend. He is the front door after all. But he also sees her creepy landlord and what he’s doing inside the apartment when Tana’s not home. 

When the landlord goes from creepy to downright dangerous, Door is scared he’ll be forced to watch his beloved Tana be injured or worse. There’s danger afoot, and whatever will Tana’s oak stalker do?

Thankfully, an odd man shows up one day and tells them both – though unconsciously on Tana’s part – exactly what needs to be done to save the woman of Door’s dreams. This includes some serious doorknob penetration, but no worries! Tana uses protection. A girl must always be careful, you know. 

I found myself giggling a lot throughout this book, but nothing compared to when I read how Door possibly came to be. His conception story had me laughing out loud. 

“And… well, there’s a pretty decent chance you may be, you know, my son. Of sorts. See, a lot of things happened in that grove and there was the perfectly positioned knothole on this really sexy tree and the mead was flowing freely-“

This was a blast. It’s not often that Kazza and I even read the same book, so I enjoyed the heck out of us doing this together. After having read the e-book, I now need to listen to it on audio. I need to hear the boiyoiyoing sound effects, damn it.

A huge thanks (I think?) to Kazza for sending this one my way, and for suggesting the buddy review. 🙂