My Dark Romeo

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of sexual content and emotional abuse.

My Dark Romeo is a work of contemporary romance. True to the expectations of the genre, the novel employs literary tropes to inspire its primary conflicts, stakes, and themes. The most notable is the enemies-to-lovers trope, which fuels the inception and trajectory of Dallas Townsend and Romeo Costa’s complex romance. However, the authors also employ the arranged marriage, billionaire romance, and forced proximity tropes. Huntington and Shen establish immediate tension between the protagonists and intensify the narrative atmosphere using these familiar genre tropes.

In the enemies-to-lovers trope, the main characters “start out as enemies with either extreme hate or dislike actually hiding love and affection” (“The Ultimate Guide to Romance Genre and Romance Tropes.” She Reads Romance Books). Throughout the novel, the protagonists ultimately “end up overcoming that hate and falling in love” (“The Ultimate Guide”). These narrative principles apply to Dallas and Romeo’s relationship. Dallas hates Romeo after they get engaged because he’s taken her from Madison Licht, her family, and her home in