About The Criminal Underground
Once upon a time, we had to hide our smut.
There was a time when reading a particularly scandalous book in public required a little discretion.
Maybe you kept the cover turned inward. Maybe you strategically positioned your coffee cup. Maybe you just prayed the person sitting next to you wouldn't glance over your shoulder at exactly the wrong moment.
Then Fifty Shades of Grey happened.
And whatever your opinion of Christian Grey and his many, many issues, you have to admit those books helped change the conversation.
Suddenly, women were talking about what they were reading. In public. With other women. Without lowering their voices to a scandalized whisper.
And somewhere between the rise of BookTok, the explosion of indie romance, and the realization that approximately half the women in the coffee shop were reading something considerably filthier than they looked, something wonderful happened.
We found each other.
And we think that's a beautiful thing.
There are already some incredible communities dedicated to romance. Women recommending books, championing authors, arguing over fictional men, and forming genuine friendships over stories that would have made their grandmothers clutch their pearls.
Well, some of their grandmothers.
We suspect a few of them were reading worse ;)
The Criminal Underground is our little contribution to that world. A place for readers, writers, and anyone who has ever fallen hopelessly in love with a fictional man who belongs on a government watchlist.
We aren't here to reinvent the book club.
We just thought we'd make one with a slightly longer criminal record.
Your imagination doesn't need a chaperone.
Here's something we believe pretty strongly: fiction is one of the few places you should be allowed to go absolutely anywhere.
You can fall in love with a monster. Root for the villain. Explore power, obsession, fear, desire, and all the complicated things that make us human.
You can enjoy a story about something you'd never want to experience in real life.
That's rather the point of having an imagination.
We don't think every book needs to teach a moral lesson, every character needs to be redeemable, or every fantasy needs to survive a committee review.
Sometimes you want a beautiful love story.
Sometimes you want a beautiful love story with kidnapping, blackmail, and a body count.
We're not going to pretend those are the same thing. We're also not going to judge you for enjoying both.
The Criminal Underground exists to celebrate dark romance in all its messy, uncomfortable, occasionally unhinged glory.
Good stories are better with bad influences.
One of the best things about reading is discovering that someone else has been living inside the same imaginary world as you.
Someone who understands why you stayed awake until four in the morning. Someone who wants to dissect that ending. Someone who won't look concerned when you announce that your latest fictional crush has committed several felonies.
We know there are plenty of places to find those people already.
And we love that.
We're not trying to replace the communities you've found. We're hoping to become another one you enjoy coming home to.
A place to talk about books, discover new favorites, meet authors, disagree passionately about fictional men, and have conversations that might earn you a few raised eyebrows elsewhere.
We want those conversations to be open, curious, funny, and respectful. You don't have to love every trope or agree with every opinion to belong here.
You just have to remember there's a real person on the other side of the screen.
The best book you've never read is out there somewhere.
And there's a decent chance its author is currently wondering how the hell to get anyone to notice it.
Publishing has changed. In some wonderful ways, the barriers to getting a book into readers' hands have never been lower.
Getting readers to actually find that book?
Well. That's another story.
There are extraordinarily talented independent authors writing stories that deserve an audience, but not everyone has the budget for Amazon ads, a massive social following, or an established readership waiting for their next release.
We think great storytelling deserves a fighting chance.
That's why discovering and championing emerging authors is one of the biggest reasons The Criminal Underground exists.
We want to introduce readers to voices they might otherwise miss, give promising new authors a little more visibility, and help good books find the people who will love them.
Not every recommendation needs to be a bestseller.
And not every bestseller started out as one.
Know a book that deserves more attention?
Maybe you've stumbled across an indie gem you can't stop recommending. Maybe your friend has written something brilliant. Maybe you're the author, and you've been trying to figure out how to get your book in front of the right readers.
We want to hear about it.
Published books, upcoming releases, and manuscripts in development are all welcome for consideration. A submission isn't a guarantee of a feature, but we'd love to see what you've got.
Submissions
Submit or nominate a book.
Published books, upcoming releases, and manuscripts in development are all welcome. A submission isn't a guarantee of a feature, but we'd love to see what you've got.
Start your submission →And finally, sometimes it's just for the hell of it.
Not everything needs to be productive.
Not every interest needs to make you a better person. Not every conversation needs to end with a profound revelation about the human condition.
Sometimes we're just people with imaginations, curiosities, desires, and a frankly unreasonable number of fictional crushes.
Some of those interests are perfectly acceptable dinner-party conversation.
Others are probably best saved for people who understand the context.
That's part of the fun of finding your people. Having somewhere you can be curious, ask questions, laugh at yourself, and talk about the things that don't always have a comfortable place in polite conversation.
We take the people in this community seriously.
We don't think we need to take ourselves quite so seriously.
There's room for you down here.
We know you have options. There are wonderful authors, book clubs, reading groups, and online communities all over the place, and we're genuinely glad they exist.
We're not interested in convincing you that we're the only place you belong.
We'd just like to be one of them.
A place where you feel welcome, where your imagination gets to run a little wild, where you find your next favorite book, and where you might discover a few people who understand you along the way.
If that sounds like your kind of trouble, we'd love to have you.
Welcome to The Criminal Underground.
Your secrets are safe with us. Your TBR probably isn't.
