Tenebrous (Mayhem Manuscripts Season Two: Cryptids) by Bree Wiley

A small town in Oregon surrounded by the legend of something in the woods, it kills and it eats, and you shouldn't go into the woods after dark. Benji is new to town and unfortunately targeted by humans and monsters alike, can he survive being captured by an eight-foot Bigfoot? And what happens when he starts to care about him?


From the blurb:

I came to Oregon to disappear.

A simple night shift guarding an old lumber mill deep in the mountains sounded easy enough. Make a quick buck, no people, no reminders of the life I destroyed back home.
Then the locals started warning me to stay out of the woods.
None of them will tell me what they’re so afraid of, but I've felt it watching me in the dark. Seen its eyes through the trees, felt its breath on my neck.
The people here are keeping secrets. And the further I fall down the rabbit hole on the history of this town, the more I understand why my parents fled before I was born.
I came here to escape my past.
Instead, I may have stumbled into something far worse.

Tenebrous is a full-length MM dark monster romance as part of the Mayhem Manuscripts Cryptids shared world collaboration. Each book is a standalone containing themes and situations not intended for readers under the age of 18. Both characters are consenting adults. This story features a massive size difference, claustrophobic tunnels, a beefy Sasquatch obsessed with his human and a guaranteed HEA.


Thera's review:

This collab is awesome. Benji and Orion made me so happy. Bree is such a great author. I'm not sure there's anything she couldn't write. The ending was everything. It was heart wrecking but also super sweet. The epilogue was so cute.

SNik's review:

Part of a multi-author series (Mayhem Manuscripts Season Two: Cryptids), but can be read as a standalone. Paranormal. Omegaverse. Captor/captive. Size difference. Slow burn. Dual POV. Heed content warnings. 

Benji travels to the small town his mother grew up in to take a job and finds there’s a lot of old legends surrounding the quirky town. When he barely survives two attacks one by an unknown something and the other by humans, he finds himself in the clutches of what could be a Bigfoot with horns. 

What an unexpectedly entertaining story, with a haunted Benji becoming the captive of a possessive Orion and all kinds of dark backstory. Orion knows very little about humans but something draws him to Benji and they both have terrible experiences from their pasts. There was plenty of steam once they were in each other's orbits, and a lot of “mine” and “mate”. I enjoyed going from Benji’s “heck no” to “I’ll do anything” to protect the other in a short few weeks. This was a great addition to the series. 

Katriana Prey's review:

Gosh, this book was everything I wanted and more!! What I loved most about Benji and Orion is that they were from different worlds, they had different needs from one another but they didn't change each other, they just figured out how to both live with what the other needed and met them there and I thought that was so beautiful to read about!

I adored both Orion and Benji, although Benji, I say this lovingly, is a bit of a chaos monster in his own right. He got himself into really dangerous situations, and knew they were bad for him, but still did it anyways which is what got him into quite a lot of trouble... I can't discuss much of how Benji and Orion met because it would be a massive spoiler, but let's just say.. I do not like Benji's Uncle, and he got what he deserved in the end, as did the Sheriff, they both deserved what they got.. I mean, how could they do that??

Since I want to keep this spoiler free, I'll discuss how much I loved Orion! He's so sweet and even when he didn't know about things, or how to care for Benji, he still tried his hardest and I absolutely adore him for that. He didn't know what to do, or what exactly was happening, but he still knew he was drawn to Benji and was just going off of what felt right, and I loved that for both him and Benji.

I think Bree did a really great job at not only creating a fantastic monster romance, but they also did a great job at writing an omegaverse book! For those wondering, it IS mentioned, but there is no Mpreg scenes on page. In the epilogue we get to see their kiddo telling campfire stories which was such a lovely way to bring the story full circle.

All in all, I absolutely LOVED this book and you definitely need to read it. Right away!!

Tenebrous is currently available as an e-book and can be read as part of your Kindle Unlimited Subscription