The Demon in the Wood
No romance or no physical intimacy at all.
Closed door. No anatomical or crude language.
Estimated from the blurb · 0 reader votes
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Blurb
See the Grishaverse come to life on screen with the Netflix series, Shadow and Bone — Season 2 streaming now! Discover the origin story of the Darkling in #1 New York Times -bestselling author Leigh Bardugo's Demon in the Wood — the beautifully illustrated, first-ever Grishaverse graphic novel. Before he became the Darkling, Eryk was just a lonely boy burdened by an extraordinary power. The dangerous truth is that Eryk is not just a Grisha—he is the deadliest and rarest of his kind. With stunning illustrations and raw emotion, peer into the shadows of the Darkling’s past and discover why he has always been feared by those who wish to destroy him and hunted into hiding his true abilities. But even in this villain origin story, wicked secrets are destined to reveal themselves . . .
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Summer days and summer nights
Same YA shelf and one of the seed's authors contributes, but this is light summer romance instead of a dark villain origin.
The Mirror of Infinite Endings
Keeps the morally-grey powerful love interest and lush fantasy court, though it centers a romance with a happy ending rather than solitary origin tragedy.
A Curse for True Love
For readers drawn to the seductive villain figure, this gives a full villain-love-interest arc with murder and bloodshed, plus actual romance.
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Shadows So Cruel
Another morally-grey, shadow-haunted figure with secrets and violence, but here the darkness fuels an explicit why-choose romance instead of a chaste origin story.