Laced In Longing by Dakota Monroe: Book Review

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At times, books remind you of other books you’ve read and loved, but with a twist—something added beneath the surface that makes you stop and think Oh, this is so much more than a beautiful story.

In Laced in Longing, we meet Maven. She’s always felt the emptiness of the void calling to her. It’s something she can’t quite describe, something she doesn’t quite understand, and yet it still calls to her: the sweet relief of ending it all.

Her days and nights are a cycle of going between work and home. Just her crystals and her books to keep her company. Bed. Wake up and start to do it all over again.

But somewhere in those painfully ordinary days, Maven dreams.

She dreams of places she only imagines going. Places locked in her phone, never to be truly experienced. She dreams of a cloaked figure always there, waiting…watching her. He doesn’t speak to her not initially. He simply exists within the space with her, familiar yet a stranger.

And when Maven wakes, there’s always a dried flower on her nightstand.

She constantly tells herself he’s not real. He’s only a dream. Maybe her mind is breaking beyond repair. Maybe this is finally the end for her. None of this is real.

That is, until he turns up while she’s awake.

And suddenly the most important question isn’t whether Maven has been dreaming about him.

It’s so much more. Who is he? Why does he keep showing up? And what does he want from her?

Title: Laced in Longing

Author: Dakota Monroe

Publisher: Independently Published

Format: eARC

Genre: Paranormal Romance

Release Date: September 29, 2026

Pages: 256

Star Rating: 5 stars

Spice Rating: 1 chili pepper

When the Void Calls Your Name

You know, going into Laced in Longing, knowing how much I love Dakota’s writing, should have thoroughly prepared me for what it would do to me.

It didn’t.

Not because it was bad, but because it was so fucking good.

And if you add to that I didn’t completely comprehend just how utterly exposed I would feel while reading it, well, that was just the cherry on top.

She says with absolutely no sarcasm whatsoever. 😏

Dakota Monroe, Respectfully, Get Out of My Head

There are books that make you feel seen, and then there are books that make you feel like someone has reached inside of the deepest parts of you, pulled at things you don’t have complete words for, and laid them on the pages for you to look at.

I do not suffer from PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder), the way that our main character Maven (and so many other women) do. What I do suffer from is a mood disorder that allows Maven’s story to hit me right in the chest.

As you can expect, this book is heavy, with a weight to it that sinks into your psyche, and somehow Dakota manages to perfectly encapsulate so many things that can make navigating women’s mental health feel incredibly isolating.

The cyclical nature of it. The exhaustion of having to exist inside your own mind when it doesn’t always feel like a safe place to be. The strange disconnect of knowing yourself and not recognizing yourself all in the same breath. The way you can understand logically that a feeling will eventually pass while simultaneously being completely unable to see beyond it when you’re inside the walls of it.

And perhaps most painfully, the difficulty of explaining any of that to someone who has never experienced it.

That’s where Laced in Longing hit me the hardest.

Because Maven’s experience isn’t mine. But there were moments when the emotions underneath it all were so familiar that I had to sit there and think, Dakota, respectfully get the fuck out of my head.

Yeah, the story itself is heart-wrenching, but beneath all those weighted layers is something incredibly beautiful.

There Is Beauty Beneath the Weight

Laced in Longing has prose that is smooth, bordering on lyrical without ever quite becoming so. There is a softness to the writing that feels at odds with the heaviness of what Maven is experiencing, and I think that’s part of what makes it work so well.

The story can be dark—sometimes painfully so—but the writing never makes it feel ugly.

And then there is the worldbuilding. Oh, the worldbuilding.

Because while Laced in Longing is deeply rooted in Maven’s internal world. Dakota still manages to build something around her that feels vivid and almost dreamlike. The settings aren’t simply places that Maven is shuffling through; they create atmosphere.

There’s a beauty everywhere in this story, even when what is happening within that beauty is absolutely fucking heartbreaking.

And I think that is what surprised me the most.

That for a book carrying so much, it never felt weighed down by it all.

And Then There Is a God Who YEARNS

And then there is the romance with a god who YEARNS.

And I mean yearns.

Ash yearns for Maven in a way that every girl wants a boy to yearn for her. This god walked through lifetimes—through literal centuries—for Maven, finding her, loving her, and waiting for the lifetime where she finally says yes to him.

And he’s tired of waiting.

But what I loved about Ash was that, for all that longing, all that desperation, all that I have crossed lifetimes for you energy, his desire for Maven never felt like it erased hers. Honestly, everything he does was in service to her.

(Goddammit. Now I have to reread this book.)

I think after everything I’ve said from this, you could probably tell that I loved it.

Welcome to the Infinity Stars, Laced in Longing

Laced in Longing has officially been added to the Infinity Stars of 2026.

It’s beautiful and heavy without ever being suffocating, and romantic in that aching way. But more than anything, this is one of those books that will make you feel. It will crawl beneath your skin, find things you recognize within yourself, and somehow give them all back wrapped inside a beautiful story.

And really, what more can you ask for from a book?

Well…

Dakota Monore, I Have One Request

Actually, Dakota, if you’re reading this, I would like to make a request.

If it isn’t already going to be a series because I’m going to need you to reconsider.

Because you cannot introduce me to the Nameless God, give me just enough to make me curious, and then expect me to simply go about my life.

I have questions.

I want answers.

And most importantly, I want his book.

Thank you to author Dakota Monroe for providing me with a copy of Laced in Longing to read and review.

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READY TO GET LACED IN LONGING?

If yearning gods, reincarnation, and a romance wrapped around a story with this much emotional weight sound like your kind of book, add Laced in Longing to your shelves.

Shop your copy by supporting independent bookstores while making your TBR beautifully irresponsible. Or better yet, shop Dakota’s website and get a signed copy from the author.

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