The Darkest Night is the first book in the Lords of Deliverance series by Gena Showalter and, man, do I like the premise for this book! Seriously, it's friggin' awesome.
The series is about, you guessed it, the Lords of the Underworld. These guys once served as the immortal members of Zeus's army. They were the fiercest of the fierce, the baddest of the bad. And yet, for some reason, they were passed over for the job of protecting a box containing the most evil demons in existence. That job was given to a woman named Pandora (see where this is going?). To say that their egos were bruised is an understatement. In retaliation for this slight, the warriors stole the box and opened it, freeing the creepy-crawlies from their prison. The gods were obviously pissed, even more so when no one could find the damn box to stuff the demons back in. Since Zeus and Co. couldn't allow the demons to roam free, they cursed the jackass warriors to house the demons within themselves. Thus, the Lords came into being and the warriors needed to learn how to control their demon halves.
The series is about, you guessed it, the Lords of the Underworld. These guys once served as the immortal members of Zeus's army. They were the fiercest of the fierce, the baddest of the bad. And yet, for some reason, they were passed over for the job of protecting a box containing the most evil demons in existence. That job was given to a woman named Pandora (see where this is going?). To say that their egos were bruised is an understatement. In retaliation for this slight, the warriors stole the box and opened it, freeing the creepy-crawlies from their prison. The gods were obviously pissed, even more so when no one could find the damn box to stuff the demons back in. Since Zeus and Co. couldn't allow the demons to roam free, they cursed the jackass warriors to house the demons within themselves. Thus, the Lords came into being and the warriors needed to learn how to control their demon halves.
See what I mean? Isn't this such a cool idea for a book? I absolutely adore it when authors incorporate the whole Greek mythology thing into a story.
Before I tell you about the book, let me first introduce you to the Lords:
Maddox aka Violence.
Torin aka Disease.
Lucien aka Death.
Reyes aka Pain.
Aeron aka Wrath.
Paris aka Promiscuity.
We meet these guys in the first half of The Darkest Night. The next half-dozen rock up during the second half of the book.
Sabin aka Doubt.
Gideon aka Lies.
Kane aka Disaster.
Strider aka Defeat.
Amun aka Secrets.
Cameo aka Misery.
Now... on to the book. The Darkest Night is Maddox's story. As the keeper of Violence, it goes without saying that it's going take someone spectacularly brave, or stupid depending on your politics, to take this guy on. Adding to his already exceeds-the-weight-limit baggage, Maddox has an additional curse to deal with: Because Maddox killed Pandora, he has been sentenced to die every night at midnight in the exact same way that he killed Pandora, only to revive in the morning to endure the whole process all over again. Like I said, lots of baggage.
Our leading lady, Ashlyn isn't exactly average Jane either. Ashlyn can hear every conversation that's ever taken place in a given area. That's a lot of chatter, and has pretty much driven her to the brink of madness. So, when she travels to Budapest for her job and she hears about a bunch of strange men living on a mountain who are capable of extraordinary things, she hopes that they'll be able to help her. She climbs the mountain in the middle of a blizzard (the dumbass) and runs into Maddox. The attraction is immediate and intense, even though they both try to resist it.
Honestly? I thought this book was just this side of good. I know, right? After all the fanfare, I just thought it was, meh...? I enjoyed the story, but the leads didn't really grab me. The time frame for this story irritated the crap out of me to be honest. Like, seriously? They fell in love after two bloody days? I had to pretend it was taking place over two weeks (not much better, I know) to preserve my peace of mind. Another thing I noticed was that these boys punch the wall a lot when they're cross. Like, a lot a lot. I kept thinking that the way things were going, they should have their house collapsing around their ears any second.
Despite this, I really enjoyed the secondary characters. I'm dying to learn more about the other Lords, and what their respective torments are. In addition to the Lords, we meet Anya and Danika. Danika, for some reason, has been targeted by the gods, who have instructed Aeron to kill her. She and Reyes have sort of been making goo-goo eyes at each other. We don't learn much about Anya but she's going to be Lucien's HEA, so we'll obviously get more of her in the next book.
While I didn't love this book, I love the idea for this series, and I'm definitely going to get my butt into gear so I can catch up. I'm about eight books behind.
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