Reviewed by True
TITLE: Sweet Violence
SERIES: In the Spotlight
AUTHOR: April Jade
PUBLISHER: Self-Published
LENGTH: 259 pages
RELEASE DATE: June 19, 2026
BLURB:
Some men survive tragedies.
Some men become them.
Henry Rothwell is famous for surviving.
A fire made him a household name. Everything else followed—a bestselling memoir, sold-out lecture halls, a reputation built on survival.
When I earn the assistantship at Wexley, Henry Rothwell is already a fixture. A famous author. An untouchable professor. A story everyone assumes is complete.
They’re wrong.
Up close, his survival isn’t clean. The details don’t line up. The silence feels intentional. Whatever lives beneath the version he presents presses closer the longer I stay.
Henry Rothwell isn’t what the world believes.
And whatever he really is—
I’m close enough now to find out.
REVIEW:
Henry Rothwell is a thirty-four-year-old professor at Ashford Academy. He’s an accomplished man who survived a terrible fire, he’s quite famous for it. He needed a TA; he could choose from 20 students, but he only wanted Archibald Quinn.
Archibald Quinn is a twenty-four-year-old student, who comes from the lower classes and has a tragic background. Caught between grief and guilt, he tried to keep standing, it’s hard.
He knows Professor Rothwell’s work, and admires him and finds him very attractive. They have something in common; tragedy and surviving.
My Little Rabbit
The more Henry sees Archie the more obsessed and protective he becomes over him, because dang, Archie needs it. The Academy is all about status, something Archie doesn’t have.
Henry uses endearments to his little rabbit and my heart stuttered, it was so intense, gawd. I wanted to hug both of them. Archie needed him and Henry gave his all.
Daddy
Their encounters are super sensual and it gets hotter and hotter.
Little by little we get to understand what’s going on in Archie’s tragic life, and of course Henry’s.
Keep in mind it’s part of the ‘In the Spotlight’ series!! Mind the trigger warning tags below on this page.
A wonderful story, heavy on the emotional aspects, mild on the core aspect of the series, and heavy again on the parts of Archie’s background. There are some serious on-page panic attacks.
The writing was solid and captivating, the characters lovable. The plot was well worked out, I loved the buildup and outcome.
The very, very last page made me smile hard.
RATING: 
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