The Dark Lord's Guide to Dating (and Other War Crimes)

Guides to Villainy and Love, Book 1

By: Tiffany Hunt

Narrated by: Anthony Palmini, Rachel Leblang

In this riotously funny dark romantasy, a conflicted villain and his unstoppable bride form the realm's most chaotic alliance.

"What's mine, stays mine."

Step One: Kidnap someone cute.

Step Two: Force her into marriage.

Step Three: Try not to get feelings.

When Dark Lord Kazimir Blackrose kidnaps Lady Arabella for a forced marriage, he expects an obedient, trembling bride. What he gets is a knife to the throat and a furious woman with her own terms. He may need her heroic bloodline to achieve ultimate dominion, but she's not about to make this easy for him.

Arabella has already survived her father's tower prison and a lifetime of being treated like property. Being abducted by the realm's most notorious villain is just another Tuesday. If she must be married to the infuriating (and infuriatingly attractive) Dark Lord, she'll do it on her terms: freedom within his fortress, hands strictly to himself, and complete honesty about his plans.

But when his plans go awry, Kazimir faces his most terrifying challenge yet. He must actually date his own wife. Between magical training sessions, playing golf with the eyeballs of his enemies, and aphrodisiac dinners gone spectacularly wrong, his villainous seduction plans are failing at every turn.

As they navigate magical explosions and jealous exes, they discover a far more terrifying prospect than war or magical catastrophe:

They might actually be falling for each other.

For fans of Assistant to the Villain, but darker and spicier, this sexy fantasy romance is perfect for those who love: a morally gray antihero (who stays that way); a strong heroine who embraces her dark side (she doesn't need rescuing, thanks); touch her and die; hilarious, wicked banter and sizzling spice; one bed/forced proximity; kidnapped bride/forced marriage; dark humor.

©2026 Tiffany Hunt (P)2026 Podium Audio

What a waste of talented narrators

The positive:
While completely predictable, the sarcasm ( what I call humour), is a lot of fun, and every character is either appealing or at least interesting. It would have been a greatly entertaining book if it hadn’t been for the narration. Once again ( since it’s not the first time it happens in audio books, and it puzzles me each time), Anthony Palmini is wasted, but this time, so is Rachel Leblang (a new to me narrator)

Why, for the love of all that is sacred, are two great narrators hired just to read random chapters, and not have the female narrator read the female parts, and the male narrator read the male parts? As much as I like them both, they respectively suck at narrating the opposite gender.
And getting all into Kazimir’s sexiness while read by Anthony, only to have a cold shower when he is being read by Rachel should be grounds for a refund. It’s close too when Arabella is growing in her personality, power, status, etc, only to be narrated by Anthony, who makes her sound bland and common.
But allowing Rachel to read the the spice scenes was a crucial error. She reads both characters with plain tone while mentioning they are breathless or very turned on. We know from “Quicksilver “ Anthony should have been in charge of this.

I got frequently annoyed because of this while listening a book I otherwise enjoyed at first. Until they did the deed. Then that’s all they seem to be doing, and the scenes are not particularly sexy.
I’m having a hard time finishing it.

Spicy and sassy, a lethal combination

I loved these characters! A unique twist on the enemies to lovers trope. Our FMC is witty, smart and fun to watch as she slowly is corrupted by the beautifully evil MC. They are a fun duo and I very much loved seeing their story play out. It is a great read for those who enjoy the assistant to the villain books! This book very much gives the same vibes but with a hell of a lot more spice! Which I’m here for!

Cute Story

It was a cute story but didn’t have enough substance for 500+ pages. It would have been better at 300 pages. Also, the narrator kept pronouncing draught like ‘drought’.

Fun story with some new aspects

Story was fun. Writing style was okay. My main mark against this one would be the performance of the female narrator. She has a way of verbally stabbing words that do not need emphasis on them and it gets to be annoying after a while.
The story is pretty tropey. But a different tale than others which is good. Female lead, while some what immature at times, does not come off too terrible. And the villain can be villainous but is not pure evil and is likable.

Great Voice Actors

Absolutely loved the voice actors. The story itself left a lot to be desired. I was so over all the sex.