Peculiar Tastes (Nikki Sloane) Books in Order

Nikki Sloane's entry in the Peculiar Tastes series is The Vixen's Deceit, a contemporary fantasy and horror romance that takes a sharp turn away from her more familiar billionaire, club, and neighborhood settings. It is the fourth Peculiar Tastes book, but it tells a self-contained story with its own characters and its own unnerving setting.

The setting does most of the heavy lifting.

The story centers on Void, an immersive haunted-house production designed to push visitors toward their breaking point. For its tenth anniversary, the experience takes over a castle on the cliffs of Scotland, a place with a bloody history and rumors of a curse. Guests are meant to be scared. The trouble is that the boundaries between performance, fear, and reality become increasingly hard to identify.

Tyler is a skeptical reporter working for a struggling magazine. Reviewing Void was not meant to be his assignment, but he is the only available journalist for an important exclusive. Once inside the castle, he has to move through increasingly disturbing scenes while trying to keep hold of what is real and what is part of the production.

Then there is the woman in the elevator.

A seductive cast member becomes Tyler's one point of connection in an experience built to isolate and disorient him. Her attention feels genuine, but Void is an elaborate performance where appearances are part of the design. As Tyler goes deeper into the castle, he has to question whether he can trust her, the people running the event, or his own senses.

This is more horror-forward than a typical contemporary romance. The story includes psychological distress, violence, blood, murder, and explicit sexual content. The romance is part of Tyler's experience, but the real through line is the escalating dread of being trapped inside a place engineered to make people doubt themselves.

The Vixen's Deceit works well for readers who want a compact, creepy read with an immersive haunted-house premise. The Scottish castle, the staged horrors, and the uncertain rules give it a claustrophobic mood. Rather than building a long-running character arc across several Nikki Sloane novels, it delivers one contained descent into Void.

Because it is a standalone entry, readers can begin with The Vixen's Deceit without prior knowledge of the other Peculiar Tastes books. Go in expecting a dark, adult story where the scares are not merely for show.