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Audiobook details
Sold once. Never again.
Imogen Demotta has lived her entire life in preparation for a single night. After her parents died, her grandfather struck a deal with the Brotherhood, a criminal organization operating in the shadows of organized society: in exchange for her life, Imogen would be kept isolated and delivered to their auction on her twenty-first birthday. She has known this since she was old enough to understand it. Knowing has not made it easier to accept.
The man who buys her is Lincoln Knight, a reclusive billionaire known for wearing a mask and for a reputation that makes the men of the Brotherhood look tame by comparison. He takes her to a crumbling mansion deep in the woods, a place that feels more like a fortress than a home. Imogen expects a prison. What she finds is harder to name. Lincoln is not what she was told. His secrets run deeper than the mask, and the more she understands about his past, the less certain she is about everything she was raised to believe.
A gothic slow-burn romance drawing on Beauty and the Beast and the brooding atmosphere of Jane Eyre, The Auction opens Sadie Kincaid's Wages of Sin series with duet narration by Grayson Owens and June deBorahae across 11 hours and 41 minutes. Published by Harlequin Audio on April 14, 2026.
I have read enough dark romance to know when a setup is borrowing atmosphere without earning it. The Auction earns it. The crumbling mansion, the masked recluse, the woman brought there against her will: Sadie Kincaid knows exactly what genre she is working in and she uses every element of it deliberately.
Imogen is a strong protagonist for this kind of story because her intelligence is established early and never undermined. She does not stop being perceptive once she starts developing feelings for Lincoln. She notices the inconsistencies in what she has been told, she questions them, and she draws conclusions that the reader can follow. The romance builds on top of that foundation rather than replacing it.
Lincoln is the harder character to calibrate in dark romance, and Kincaid gets it right. He is morally grey in ways that are specific rather than vague. His behavior toward Imogen is controlling in some respects and genuinely protective in others, and the book does not collapse the two into a simple redemption arc. The distinction matters and it is maintained.
The Brotherhood backstory gives the romance real structural weight. The auction is not a metaphor or a framing device. It is a functioning criminal institution with rules, politics, and consequences, and the plot uses all of that. By the time the secrets start coming out, the stakes feel built rather than announced.
The duet narration from Grayson Owens and June deBorahae is the right format for this material. Owens gives Lincoln the controlled tension the character requires without ever making him feel cartoonishly threatening. DeBorahae's Imogen is sharp and guarded in the early chapters and the shift in her voice as the story progresses is gradual enough to feel earned. Eleven hours and forty-one minutes move quickly. The gothic atmosphere translates well to audio, and the pacing of the slow burn is actually more effective when you cannot skim.
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The Auction by Sadie Kincaid opens the Wages of Sin series with Imogen Demotta, a young woman raised in isolation and delivered to a criminal auction on her twenty-first birthday, and Lincoln Knight, the masked billionaire who buys her and takes her to a remote, decaying mansion deep in the woods. What Imogen expected to be a darker prison turns into something far more complicated: a man carrying secrets as heavy as her own, and a slow-building pull she cannot explain away.
The free trial, cancellable at any time, gives you immediate access. Grayson Owens and June deBorahae narrate in duet across 11 hours and 41 minutes, with Owens bringing coiled restraint to Lincoln and deBorahae tracking Imogen's shift from guarded resistance to something far more dangerous. The gothic atmosphere of the book lands exactly as it should in audio.
The audiobook is yours to keep even after the trial ends. The free trial also opens access to thousands of other titles with no commitment required. Start listening now.
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