Lords of the Underworld: The Darkest Night

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. 

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. 

 

Angels of the Dark: Wicked Nights

Wicked Nights was my first book by Gena Showalter, and I am so glad I gave this author a try. Ms Showalter really does have a way with words. More than just enjoying the story, I loved her writing. She made even the most simple of sentences really powerful, just through her wording. Another thing I was pretty impressed with was that I don't think Showalter used one swearword in the entire book. I think the worst might have been "damn". Don't get me wrong, I don't mind the swearing. It's just that in a genre where authors feel completely at ease liberally spicing their books with F-bombs, it was refreshing to find an author who manages to create tough-guy characters without the harsh language.  

Moving on to the story. Angels of the Dark is a spinoff from Showalter's Lords of the Underworld series. I didn't realise this before starting, but I wasn't confused, only curious about the few characters introduced from the previous series.

Wicked Nights was really loads of fun. Angels have become pretty popular in paranormal romance lately, and I think it's pretty easy to get lost in the crowd. This book definitely stood out. Zacharel is an angel, and he's as cold as ice. He was forced to kill his twin brother, Hadrenial, after the poor guy was tortured by demons. Since then Zacharel's had a major clamp on his emotions, and he considers himself above petty human emotions like anger, despair, love, and lust. Zacharel has gotten into more than a little trouble for killing demons without any thought for possible collateral damage ie. humans. His actions and lack of remorse have caused him to become the leader of an army of misfit angels. He has a year to whip these angels into shape, or he and his army will be cast from heaven. One more thing I'm going to mention about Zacharel is the fact that he's a virgin. I wouldn't normally consider this to be something worth mentioning but, since it doesn't often happen that the guy is as pure as the driven snow, it made for a nice change. It was pretty entertaining to watch Zacharel struggle with his reaction to our leading lady.

Annabelle Miller has had a supremely crappy last four years. When she was eighteen, she saw her parents being killed by a demon. The demon disappeared after the slaughter and Annabelle, being the only possible suspect, was charged with their murder. She was later institutionalised, crazy chick who saw monsters, and had pretty much gotten used to taking care of herself until she met Zacharel. 

I really enjoyed our two leads. Zacharel, having been out of touch with his emotions for so long, is completely clueless and seeing him try to deal with this pint-sized human chick was really funny. Annabelle was a good heroine. She was tough, but not so bent on proving herself that she was stupid. She was in touch with her emotions without being a crybaby. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I'm already excited for the next book in the series, Beauty Awakened.