Unhinged Cain by Brooklyn Cross
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Kirby wished for a new life, but the Devil sent her Cain.
Unhinged Cain
I knew what my calling in life was at a young age. I was the embodiment of death. The scent of blood and watching the life fade from something’s eyes was more delicious than any dessert. With my twin Abel by my side, we reveled in the pain of others and the knowledge that we were above it all. Not even the FBI could hunt us down.
The one thing I hadn’t accounted for was Kirby and the unusual spark of emotion she created. Being a psychopath, I knew my range of emotions had always been limited. Things like love, regret, and empathy eluded me. Yet I couldn’t stop stalking the woman that had piqued my interest.
But all decisions had consequences, and hunting Kirby wouldn’t just test my own rules. It would pull on the one bond I had, and Kirby was the hammer that might cause mine to splinter.
To the outside world, I had a life that most would say was privileged, but to me, it felt like the walls were caving in and trying to crush me with their rules of conformity. Little did I know that my life was about to change forever. One drive was all it took. One decision to turn down a wrong road, led to one heated glance that would catch the interest of the most notorious serial killer the FBI had ever chased.
Once I was in his grasp, my world turned on its axis, leaving me breathless and desiring things I could never have imagined. My mind became a war ground between my conscious and my growing passion for a man my heart should never want.
Would I be able to love him regardless of what he was, or would I end up on the wrong end of his blade?
Demented in All the Best Ways
The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: ❤️💙💚🖤
Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Chemistry: 🧪🧪🧪🧪🧪
Story/Plot: 📕📗📙📘📔
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌏🌍
Character development: 😋😉😎😮
Narration: 🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙
Narration Type: Duet Narration
Characters and Plot Summary
Unhinged Cain is definitely one of those dark romances where the title is not exaggerating. Cain Buchanan is a highly intelligent, calculated serial killer who has learned to imitate normal emotions because he does not experience them in the way most people do. His twin, Abel, is just as dangerous, but much more impulsive and chaotic. I actually found their relationship fascinating because their identical appearance is taken to an extreme. If one gets a scar, the other gives himself the same scar, and even Abel’s increasingly ridiculous tattoos become something Cain has to copy to preserve their identical image.
Everything changes when Cain sees Kirby and becomes fixated on her unusual violet eyes. Eyes have always been his trophies, so the fact that he has never had a victim with violet eyes makes her immediately special to him. Kirby is training at Quantico largely because her controlling mother, Margaret, expects her to become an FBI agent. Kirby would much rather paint, and her dissatisfaction with her life becomes even more obvious as she questions her relationship with Peter and the path she has been pushed toward.
I especially liked that Margaret is investigating the Chameleon while unknowingly being much closer to the truth than she realizes. That creates an interesting layer of dramatic irony, particularly because her own daughter is becoming involved with the very killer she is trying to understand. The story also takes some genuinely disturbing turns, so the trigger warnings should absolutely be taken seriously. Other readers have specifically mentioned the graphic violence, sexual violence, captivity, and other extreme content.
Highlights and Limitations
The biggest strength for me was Cain himself. I love dark romance when the hero is genuinely morally irredeemable rather than simply a dangerous man with a soft heart, and Cain absolutely fits that description. His internal rules about being smart, precise, clean, and never getting caught make his criminal behavior feel calculated rather than random. Yet Kirby begins disrupting that carefully controlled world simply because he becomes obsessed with her.
I also really enjoyed the Cain and Abel dynamic. Cain is the leader and planner while Abel is the unpredictable follower, and their devotion to maintaining their identical appearance is both creepy and strangely compelling. The fact that Cain believes he loves Abel, or at least experiences something close to love with him, gives his otherwise emotionally limited character another dimension.
Kirby was more complicated for me. I understood why she was frustrated with her life and her mother’s expectations, but I sometimes wished she had been developed more deeply. The only other limitation was that these two killers seemed to kill far too often to not get caught. Though I was glad the book mentioned they somehow got rid of the bodies completely rather than dumping them all in out of the way places. They sometimes used pigs that were mentioned early on, about how quickly pigs could devour a body.
Still, I never found myself bored. The story kept pushing me into increasingly uncomfortable territory, and I actually appreciated that it did not try to make Cain’s behavior acceptable simply because this is a romance. My biggest personal reaction was probably how much I enjoyed watching someone as controlled as Cain become genuinely thrown off balance by Kirby.
Narration
Teddy Hamilton was fantastic as Cain. His performance gave Cain exactly the cold, dangerous quality I wanted, while still allowing those subtle changes in his voice when Kirby began affecting him. He really sells the contrast between the man Cain pretends to be around other people and the psychopath underneath.
Angelina Rocca also did a great job with Kirby, particularly in the scenes where Kirby is frightened, frustrated, or pushing back against the people trying to control her. The duet-style narration worked particularly well for this story, and several audiobook reviewers specifically praised both narrators and Teddy Hamilton’s performance.
One small audio complaint I did have was the use of sound effects at the beginning of chapters. They were not a dealbreaker, but I found them unnecessary.
Final Thoughts
Unhinged Cain was exactly the kind of messed-up, morally black romance I enjoy when I want something seriously dark. Cain and Abel are disturbing, Kirby’s circumstances are complicated, and the romance is absolutely not conventional. I particularly enjoyed the idea of an utterly unredeemable character becoming obsessed with the one person who manages to awaken something resembling genuine emotion in him. Especially since he still planned on eventually killing her for much of the time after he had her in his grasp.
I do wish Kirby had received a little more character development and that some of the later relationship progression had been given more room to breathe. Even so, I was completely invested. I have been loving doing the read-and-listen combination, and Teddy Hamilton’s performance made Cain even more compelling.
My biggest problem now is that I finished, wanting more Buchanan brothers immediately. I am honestly a little distressed that Twisted Abel isn’t available on audiobook because after spending this much time inside Cain and Abel’s twisted world, I absolutely want to hear Abel’s story too. I will most likely read the book without an audio companion.
Quotes
“Time to stalk a pretty girl, pretty girl, pretty girl.
Time to stalk a pretty girl so early in the morning.
Time to make the girl mine, the girl mine, the girl mine.
Time to make the girl mine so early in the morning.
Time to slit her pretty throat, pretty throat, pretty throat.
Time to slit her pretty throat and keep her as my trophy.”
I didn’t like the sound of his name on her tongue. That was the first name she was never allowed to say again. Leaning dangerously close to her ear, I growled softly. “Never say his name again near me unless you want me to remove your tongue.”
“She was the ultimate Ice Queen, and I was the spawn she got pregnant with by accident. I’d never lived up to her expectations since.”
“I’m sorry, I just love how all the FBI and my mother are talking to the murderer they’re chasing and have no fucking clue.” She slumped against the wall, a smile on her face. “Serves them right for being so fucking arrogant.”
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