WRATH

A whirlwind romance between two 30-something Manhattanites turns dangerous when wrath rears its ugly head.

Chastity Jeffries doesn’t have time for love. The 34-year-old attorney has just moved back home to New York City from Atlanta for a cushy job at the Divorce Concierge and she’s more interested in building her career than dating. Besides, after a childhood marred by watching her basketballer-turned-preacher father, Kareem, cheat on her mother, Sisley, Chastity’s outlook on relationships is not exactly rosy. That is, until she meets Xavier King. He seems like a dream come true—tall, dark, and handsome, he’s a successful attorney with a penchant for big romantic gestures. But this is a story about wrath, and Xavier embodies it. His adolescence was filled with physical and verbal abuse at the hands of his grandmother, and that trauma has manifested in adult Xavier’s own violent outbursts. When his fiancee, Roxanne, walks out on him, Xavier refuses to take his best friend Bryce’s advice to talk to a professional about his rage, throwing himself into his new relationship with Chastity instead. But when it becomes increasingly difficult to control his emotions, it's only a matter of time before Xavier’s perfect facade comes crashing down. The author expertly builds ominous tension, dropping several red flags as Xavier’s lying, gaslighting, manipulation, and fury are revealed slowly. But multiple flashback scenes are awkwardly inserted, interrupting the sinister buildup. Readers who don't enjoy overt religious themes in their fiction may bristle at many of Chastity’s ideas about her relationship, particularly that Xavier’s anger issues are the reason God brought them together. And while the parablelike climax is expected, it wraps up with swift, almost biblical justice in a way that real-life domestic violence rarely does.

This cautionary tale feels like it was written expressly to be adapted into a made-for-TV movie.