The Sweetest Oblivion
Danielle Lori, 2018
Romance Mystery, thriller & crime
A mafia don’s daughter trained to smile on command meets a man who wants her honest—and dangerous. A tender, tense romance with a lyrical edge, moving between family loyalty, danger, and the quiet wish to be seen honestly.
Feels like tenderness and serenity. About home and war.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy romance tangled with crime and a heroine who has learned to perform obedience. The mafia setting and dark-romance intensity may not suit you if you want a gentle, low-conflict love story.
Why read it
If you want a romance where tenderness and danger sit close together, this gives you a heroine learning to stop performing and a man who asks for the truth.
A page from the book
The small violence of being told to smile.
I hated when someone told me to smile, as if a smile of mine belonged to them and not to me. Danielle Lori.Danielle Lori self-published The Sweetest Oblivion in 2018; it became a word-of-mouth favorite in online dark-romance circles.
Books that feel like this
Where to get it
Some of these links earn us a small commission, at no cost to you. It keeps BookFeed free.
Questions readers ask
- Is The Sweetest Oblivion for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy romance tangled with crime and a heroine who has learned to perform obedience. The mafia setting and dark-romance intensity may not suit you if you want a gentle, low-conflict love story.
- What is The Sweetest Oblivion like?
- A tender, tense romance with a lyrical edge, moving between family loyalty, danger, and the quiet wish to be seen honestly. Feels like tenderness and serenity. About home and war.
- What should I read after The Sweetest Oblivion?
- If you liked The Sweetest Oblivion, try The House on Hope Street (Danielle Steel), The Duke and I (Julia Quinn) and Artemis (Andy Weir).
A taste of the feed
Some feelings arrive before the vocabulary does.
His mouth captured hers, trying to show her with his kiss what he was still learning to express in words. He loved her. He worshipped her. He’d walk across fire for her. He— —still had the audience of her three brothers. Slowly breaking the kiss, he turned his face to the side. Anthony, Benedict, and Colin were still standing in the foyer. Anthony was studying the ceiling, Benedict was pretending to inspect his fingernails, and Colin was staring quite shamelessly.
The Duke and I · Julia Quinn
The number you must not look at while your air runs out.
I switched to long, even hops. It felt like slow motion, but it was the best way to move with all that weight. My helmet’s heads-up display said the airlock was fifty-two meters away. I glanced at my arm readouts. My oxygen reserve plummeted while I watched. So I stopped watching.
Artemis · Andy Weir
What it costs to walk back into a house love has left.
Sometimes it’s exhausting for me to simply walk into the house. I try and calm myself, remember that I’ve lived alone before. Sleeping by myself didn’t kill me then and will not kill me now. But this what loss has taught me of love. Our house isn’t simply empty, our home has been emptied. Love makes a place in your life, it makes a place for itself in your bed. Invisibly, it makes a place in your body, rerouting all your blood vessels, throbbing right alongside your heart. When it’s gone, nothing is whole again.
An American Marriage · Tayari Jones
Read pages from books like this, one at a time
Keep reading in the feed




