Haunting Adeline vs Hunting Adeline: which comes first, and which one is darker

One letter. That’s all that separates the two most searched books in dark romance, and every single week somebody picks up the wrong one first.

So let’s sort it. Haunting Adeline and Hunting Adeline aren’t two versions of the same book, and they aren’t rivals either. They’re one story by H. D. Carlton, split across two books called the Cat and Mouse duet.

Short answer: read Haunting Adeline first. Hunting Adeline is the sequel. It finishes the story, and on the warning list it’s the heavier of the two by a long way.

The quick comparison

• Haunting Adeline: book 1 of the Cat and Mouse duet, first published in 2021. Spice 5/5, darkness 5/5 on my shelf. It ends on a cliffhanger. Book page · trigger warnings
• Hunting Adeline: book 2, first published in January 2022. Spice 5/5, darkness 5/5. My shelf marks the ending as HEA. Book page · trigger warnings
• Warnings flagged on this site: 6 for Haunting Adeline, 13 for Hunting Adeline.
• Length: big books, both of them. The current Zando paperbacks run to 624 pages for Haunting Adeline and 704 for Hunting Adeline.

Haunting Adeline: the house, the roses, the man who is already inside

Adeline Reilly is an author who moves back to Seattle and into her late grandmother’s gothic mansion, Parsons Manor. Then the break-ins start. Roses appear. Messages arrive that read more like promises than threats. She has a stalker, and she finds out she isn’t the first woman in her family to have one: her great-grandmother’s journals tell the story of her own phantom, and of her murder.

The stalker is Zade Meadows. He is a hacker with money and reach who runs an organisation that goes after human traffickers, and he is very comfortable with violence when it points at the men he hunts. Then he sees Adeline, and he decides she is his.

This is the book that made Zade famous, and I get it. The fear is close and domestic. A woman alone in an old house knows she’s being watched, and the man watching treats that house like he already lives there. The dread is the whole pleasure.

The flags on my shelf, taken from H. D. Carlton’s own content notes: trafficking, non-consent and dubious consent at the graphic end, violence and murder in the middle, occult at the light end. The full list is on the Haunting Adeline trigger warnings page. Read it. I mean that.

One more thing before you start: it ends on a cliffhanger. The publisher says so in the cover copy, so have book two within reach.

Is it horror?

Loads of readers pick this up expecting a gothic horror mystery, and they’re half right. There’s an old house, a ghost and a great-grandmother’s journals full of secrets. At heart, though, it’s a dark romance, and Carlton lists it as HEA. Come for the dread, but know what you’re signing up for.

Hunting Adeline: the war

Light spoiler for the end of book one below. The publisher’s own blurb gives this away, but if you want to go in blind, skip to the next heading.

Hunting Adeline drags her out of the house. She ends up in the hands of a trafficking ring, held in a house used to groom women for the elite, and she has to survive something called the Culling and get out. Zade, meanwhile, will stop at nothing to get her back, even if he has to burn the world down to find her.

Book one is a gothic ghost story with a man in it. Book two is a war. The menace isn’t a shadow at the window any more. It’s the people Zade has been fighting all along, and the book doesn’t look away from them.

That’s why the warning list doubles. On this site Hunting Adeline is flagged at the graphic end for torture, knife play, trafficking, sexual assault and gore. In the middle sit psychological abuse, violence, kidnapping, murder, abuse and blood. Death and trauma sit at the light end. Community lists add suicide and self-harm on top. All of it is on the Hunting Adeline trigger warnings page, and if one of those is a hard line for you, put the book down. There is no prize for finishing something that hurts you.

The middle of book 2 is where the fights start. Plenty of readers compare the captivity and maze section to survival thrillers like The Hunger Games. Some love the change of pace. Others think it sits oddly with the subject.

So which one is darker?

Both sit at 5 of 5 on my darkness scale. Neither pulls a punch. But if you’re asking which book asks more of you, it’s Hunting Adeline, and it isn’t close. Book one keeps most of its horror in the shadows of one house. Book two takes you into the cages.

The first book is the seduction. The second is the payoff, and in this lane the payoff is meant to cost something.

Which one is spicier?

Both are 5 of 5 on my spice scale, which means frequent, graphic and the point of a lot of chapters. I’m not splitting hairs between two fives. I will say that spice and darkness get separate scores here for a reason. Heat tells you how much is on the page. Darkness tells you what it costs. This is how I rate.

Can you read Hunting Adeline first?

No. The publisher puts it plainly in the book’s own description: it is the second and final instalment, and you must read Haunting Adeline first. Start with Haunting. Don’t get clever.

Where do the novellas fit?

The Cat and Mouse series has two main books and three shorter ones. In series order on my shelf: Phantom (book 0, 2025), Satan’s Affair (book 0.5, 2021), Haunting Adeline, Hunting Adeline, then Where’s Molly (book 2.5, 2024). The novellas are optional. Read the duet first. Every one of them sits at 5 of 5 for spice and darkness on my shelf, so don’t treat them as a gentle way in. The full list is on the Cat and Mouse series page, and the rest of Carlton’s books, lightest to darkest, are in H. D. Carlton books ranked.

Want the whole world? Satan’s Affair, Sibby’s novella, is an optional extra that crosses into the duet, and Carlton’s publisher lists it first. Most readers still start with the duet, which is my advice too, then pick up Sibby’s side and Where’s Molly after.

If you want the man without the full weight

Some of you will read all that and decide the duet is too much right now. Good. That’s what warnings are for. The gentlest door into the same lane is Lights Out by Navessa Allen: a masked man who watches and breaks in, played closer to a dark romcom, spice 4 of 5 and darkness 3 of 5 on my shelf. Check its warnings too, because gentler doesn’t mean clean.

If you have finished both books and you want more men like Zade, start with books like Haunting Adeline, then the stalker romance and masked man romance shelves. It’s October, so the Halloween dark romance list is ready too, and both Adeline books are on it. And if you want the long version of who he is, I wrote a full Zade Meadows character guide.

Haunting Adeline is getting a film. I only put confirmed facts on the Haunting Adeline movie page, not whatever TikTok decided this morning.

FAQ

Is Hunting Adeline the same book as Haunting Adeline?

No. Haunting Adeline is book 1 of H. D. Carlton’s Cat and Mouse duet and Hunting Adeline is book 2. One story, two books, one letter apart.

Which should I read first, Haunting Adeline or Hunting Adeline?

Haunting Adeline. The publisher says you must read it before Hunting Adeline, and Hunting picks up where the first book leaves off.

Does Haunting Adeline end on a cliffhanger?

Yes. It ends on a cliffhanger, so have Hunting Adeline ready before you finish.

Is Hunting Adeline darker than Haunting Adeline?

Both score 5 of 5 for darkness here, but Hunting Adeline carries more than twice the warning flags on this site: 13 against 6, including torture, sexual assault and gore. Read the warnings before you start.

How many books are in the Cat and Mouse series?

Two main books, Haunting Adeline and Hunting Adeline, plus three novellas: Phantom, Satan’s Affair and Where’s Molly.

Is Haunting Adeline a horror book?

Not quite. It has horror in it, with a haunted house, a ghost and a stalker, but it’s a dark romance, and Carlton lists it as HEA.

Is Satan's Affair part of the Cat and Mouse duet?

No. It’s a connected novella about Sibby, set in the same world. Carlton’s publisher lists it before Haunting Adeline in the reading order.

Before you go

If a man who watches is your kind of dark, I write one. My serial, Behind the Mask, is on Patreon, and that’s where every part goes up. And if you want the next essay without hunting for it, join The Dark Romance Weekly. One email when there is something worth sending. Nothing else.