7.13.2010

The Darkest Passion by Gena Showalter

For weeks, the immortal warrior Aeron has sensed an invisible female presence. An angel--demon-assassin--has been sent to kill him. Or has she? Olivia claims she fell from the heavens, giving up immortality because she couldn't bear to harm him. But trusting--and falling for--Olivia will endanger them all. So how has this "mortal" with the huge blue eyes already unleashed Aeron's darkest passion?

Now, with an enemy hot on his trail and his faithful demon companion determined to remove Olivia from his life, Aeron is trapped between duty and consuming desire. Worse still, a new executioner has been sent to do the job Olivia wouldn't....(from Goodreads)


With each new Lords of the Underworld book I find myself feeling more and more....confused. Which ends up being a good thing! The first three books in the series had me hook, line and sinker. I really enjoyed Ashlyn and Maddox in The Darkest Night. We were introduced to each of the Lords and their basic backstory and I COULD NOT wait to read more! The Darkest Kiss is probably my favorite and I equally enjoyed The Darkest Pleasure. This is the point where the confusion started to settle in. The Darkest Whisper was the next in the series and it featured Sabin who was not one of the original six Lords first featured in The Darkest Night and I didn't feel a strong connection to his character. I enjoyed the story but actually put it down for months before finishing it. When I did eventually pick it up again, I came in right on all the action and was immediately drawn back into this world and was on the edge of my seat waiting to find out what happened next!

For me The Darkest Passion was the same way. Even though Aeron was one of the original six warriors we came to know, I never felt like we really got to see HIM. He was consumed by bloodlust for much the first books. Olivia who is his angel heroine is introduced in a previous book but we really only get glimpses of her presence. When The Darkest Passion starts we are just thrown right into their story and I felt like I was missing something. We don't get to see Olivia in heaven at all. We don't see her struggle with choosing to fall to be with Aeron. I felt that I'd missed out on important character building, BUT Gena Showalter has a handle on this series and she knows what she needs to do to bring the story together. I was charmed by both Aeron and Olivia. Olivia's actions sometimes seemed so out of place that I had to laugh out loud and realize I was underestimating her character (punching Legion in the face is one such thing that comes to mind). Much like with The Darkest Whisper, the climax of the story happens at the very end of the book. Hence the confusion! I had NO clue how Showalter was going to fix the mess that she had gotten us into with so little time left to do it. I was quite literally sitting up in bed going, "WHAT IS HAPPENING?!" and then BOOM! It's solved. I will say that it felt like the problems were tied up a little too nicely but I was just so happy to have a cohesive ending that I didn't mind that at all!

There were numerous other threads started in this book to set up future stories and battles. I'm still waiting on tenterhooks for Paris's story and am now also pretty excited to see what happens with Strider. All in all a great addition to the series that keeps the story moving forward.

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