5 reasons to read All Saints High by L.J. Shen | Addictive new adult romance

In today’s post I’m sharing with you 5 reasons to read All Saints High by L.J. Shen!

Spoiler alert: it’s hitting 🌶🌶🌶🌶 on the Spice Scale!

L.J. Shen and I have a bit of a complicated relationship. Some of her other books haven’t necessarily been my favourites. But this series? Well it was like something major has shifted, and I devoured them.

All Saints High is a spin off series from Sinners of Saint, in which we read about the original character’s kids and other family members. Known for her new adult dark college romances, this was no different from L.J. Shen. With alpha male bad boy main characters who have dark pasts, tormented back stories and things they have to work through, you definitely can’t call them light and fluffy.

Disclaimer: as you may have gathered from my description, these books get dark. If you already aren’t a fan of these kinds of books, where the characters viscerally hate each other from the beginning and some of their actions are questionable, you probably won’t like these.

5 reasons to read All Saints High

The characters

One of my favourite things about this series was how electric the characters were. Each one of the protagonists was so well developed and three dimensional; it was easy to envision them as real people. While yes the men might be typical “alpha male bad boys” (or alphaholes as they are known in the community), they all had their own personalities and their own quirks.

The smut 🥵

Hooooooooooo boi were these books hot. If you don’t enjoy explicit smut in your books, maybe don’t read these. It’s been a few weeks now since I read them and they’re still on my mind, and there aren’t many authors who write these scenes like L.J. Shen does. If you want to read some serious steamy smut, pick these up. Those people who say books like Clockwork Princess are smutty? THEY DON’T HAVE A CLUE.

The angst

SO. MUCH. ANGST. At times I was gripping my Kindle so hard because I just could not deal with the tension. It was seriously palpable. When it comes to new adult romance I am a sucker for some angst, and these books were plentiful in that department.

The relationships

Now while the relationships between the main characters were *chef’s kiss*, I’m talking more about the familial relationships here. Family is such an important aspect of these stories and this made the books so much more engaging for me. Yes sometimes the characters acted like a bit of a dick, but then seeing how they loved and respected their parents and other family members? It just amplified my enjoyment.

There are so many books!

Like I said, this is a spin off from L.J. Shen’s previous series and while you don’t necessarily have to read one to enjoy the other, if you do like these books you might want to delve into the author’s backlist. And trust me, you’re going to one them downloaded to your Kindle and ready to go!

AND, a lil bonus…

The books are ALMOST free to read. If you have Kindle Unlimited, all three books are available to download from there, along with the majority (if not all) of L.J. Shen’s other books. If you don’t have Kindle Unlimited, it’s £7.99 a month and you can borrow more or less unlimited books!

I am now planning to re-read the Sinners of Saints series to see if I get on better with it a second time around. Admittedly, I have had the issue before of wanting a dark, bully romance, picking up said dark, bully romance and then complaining that the characters are horrible to each other like ???

AMY YOU LITERALLY WENT LOOKING FOR THAT.

If you’re looking for a dark, new adult romance series that will have you hooked, then I think you need to check these out. Definitely be aware of content warnings though, including sexual abuse, physical abuse, death in the family, rape, drug and alcohol addiction, gore, violence and more. If you think you may be affected by these topics then I would recommend checking out more in-depth reviews.

So there are my 5 reasons to read All Saints High! Does this sound like your cup of tea?