Beautiful. God, this was beautiful. I never watched or read The Phantom of the Opera, so I was sceptical, and only started reading because it's by Kathryn Ann Kingsley, and no one writes villain MMCs as perfect as her. But I was hooked almost immediately. It didn't even matter that I don't know the original story. I'm sure there were moments that would be even better if you do, but as it was for me, I understood everything and thoroughly enjoyed this story. Erik is written so well and I loved his different sides. Both dominant and soft. Beautiful and ugly. And, of course, a lunatic. Their relationship progressed perfectly well-timed. I love very slow slow burns, and this felt kind of like a best of both worlds, as it wasn't even that slow, but still so well paced, leaving enough room for all those great smut scenes (and man, they were great!). Now onto spoiler territory... There's only one thing that almost made me want to only give 4 stars - the end. I hated him giving her that ultimatum already as is, I hated him deciding for her, against her decision even more, I hated thinking he was gone, and I hated how fast it all suddenly happened. It would've helped if the happy end would've happened earlier then, him suddenly turning up much earlier. The idea that he's actually rooted (now?) to the ring is super sweet, but the impending tragic end had already soured my experience by then. I guess I'm not one for surprise happy ends at the last second. Maybe a happy epilogue could've helped. I still decided for 5 stars now, because I adore 98% of the book. I feel like 2% shouldn't drag it down. And it's still got a place in my imaginary "favorite books of all time" list for sure. An amazing mix of beauty, excitement, great smut (heh) and sadness. ___ Edit/Reread: God, the scene where he touches her while she sleeps is life-changingly-good. I love how emotional and special it is to him.