REVIEW: The Darkest Night

Gena Showalter
The Darkest Night (Lords of the Underworld #1)
Harlequin
ISBN-10: 0373772467
ISBN-13: 978-0373772469
Paranormal Romance
May 1, 2008

Spoilers. I writes them.

Ashlyn Darrow hears dead people. Well, and live people. Conversations from the past fill her mind till she’s literally ready to break, voices that never cease. A problem from childhood, she’s never known much of life outside the Institute, a place her parents sent her to to get help. Now she listens to these conversations for her Institute family and aids them in tracking down the otherworldly and paranormal. But it’s quickly getting to be too much, and in Budapest are legendary men that might be able to aid her…

Maddox aided his fellow warriors once in unleashing a terrible curse upon the world. As punishment, they were saddled with the very demons they released, and his demon is Violence. As added penance, he must be slain every night, in a gruesome parody of his misdeed, for the slaying of the demons’ former keeper. Cursed night after night, Maddox is literally in Hell.

Right off the bat, this one grabbed my eye. Needless to say, I was excited as well to hear that the first three books were back-to-back, monthly releases. Sweet! I was also excited to see what looked to be a darker, edgier series from a normally more carefree and humorous author. While I did enjoy some aspects of The Darkest Night, there was a lot left wanting too.

Dislikes:

A lot of the main character’s interactions are jarring because we don’t really get to know them much. Deeper character exploration and development would have been nice and lessened some of that jarring quality.

Ashlyn has this instant, childlike and almost rock star groupie-ish reaction to Maddox. Because the voices stop around him, she’s attached like a baby bird when it first meets its mother. I found myself wishing a lot of the time for Ashlyn to grow a spine and stand out on her own a bit more. Her character seemed to depend too much on Maddox. Just when she seemed like she was going to clone that spine, something would happen and Maddox was overshadowing her again.

Maddox himself was definitely more interesting with his whole brooding, I-must-dies-every-night attitude. But it just killed ME that his back story wasn’t more delved into. Like Ashlyn, he needed a lot more character development. Why did he think it was a good idea to unleash these demons? It’s explained as simple jealousy and wounded male pride…although we have to know in the back of our minds that it’s much more than this. It. Just. Has. To. Be. We’re talking the mythological Pandora’s box here. So the gods chose a female warrior when they should have chosen Maddox? It’s too interesting of a premise, so I was disappointed when it wasn’t further developed. Maybe next time? Meh…..

There are these Hunters that work for the Institute (and it was totally transparent that they worked for this Institute and not some other diabolical organization. Ashlyn’s reactions were eye-rolling bad; how she didn’t make the connection before so close to book’s end was baffling not to mention embarrassingly…juvenile.) They are relentless and fanatical in their quest to retrieve the demons and do away with their carriers, the Lords themselves. So, they are all the freak over Budapest. And Maddox and the others know this. As a result, the scene where the Lords all meet up in the disco/club was plain annoying. They ALL knew that Hunters were just waiting to get a shot at them. WHY did they just walk right into it?

For once it’s the males who have TSTL moments? (opening Pandora’s box and all, unleashing death and destruction on all of us, the disco, etc.) How…refreshing. No, I take that back, it made me roll my eyes and ask WHY, ya dunces?

Like a lot of firsts in a series, it was rushed, a lot of the world building thrown in and unfortunately it leaves the main romance a little in the lacking department (OK, I admit it, I just plain did not care for the main romantic coupling in this one). Ashlyn can hear past conversations in her head. It is literally driving her crazy. For some reason, being in Maddox’s presence sooths her ability and mutes the voices. Ashlyn in turn really turns on Maddox’s inner demon, Violence, for which Maddox is pretty grateful because he can then control the demon better. Ahh, I hear wedding bells already.

And therein seems to lie the reasons for the two to fall in love. Which makes me scrunch my face up in cunfewshun. Is that really enough to justify love? Sure, Ashlyn says she won’t leave him and all on one of those midnight stabbing marathons. She even sleeps all night curled around his dead body (which kind of grossed me out), but is the give-and-take action of “you solve my dilemma and I’ll solve yours” enough to justify the almost instant love? I didn’t see a reason for it. Heated exchanges, a little hot sex and mutual attraction? That I could believe. It’s not as far a stretch to believe there is an attraction. But I wish the character development had been there a lot more, to explain better how love came almost out of nowhere.

And also with a lot of series firsts, the secondary characters ended up being a lot more interesting for me than the main, which ties into the Likes below…

As far as the ending goes……no, I can’t go there after all.

Likes:

Great concept for a series. Loved the play on Greek mythology.

The Keeper of Promiscuity, aka Paris. What can I say? Sex sells and I want his story. How the heck is this one going to convince the love of his life that being a man slut is a good thing? Or justify it at all? The people want to know! Unfortunately he’s not listed in the line-up yet with a release date, but I do hope he will be soon. I mean, a woman just comes up to him, licks his chin, and he’s all like sex sex sex. How fun is that?

My second pick would be Reyes, Keeper of Pain, with his obvious attraction to Danika (youngest of a party of four women that are captured and kept at the Lords’ pad for safekeeping. Because Aeron, Keeper of Wrath is ordered to snuff their lights.). And thankfully he is in the lineup, scheduled for a July 2008 release. Before him comes the Keeper of Death though. Snore. How droll.

Just kidding. ;) I’m sure Lucian’s bound to spice up the storyline with his deathly serious persona.

You can read excerpts of The Darkest Kiss and The Darkest Pleasure at Showalter’s Lords of the Underworld site, as well as keep up with new developments in the series. And that got me thinking. If Reyes, Mr. Pain, gets a title like The Darkest Pleasure, what’s left for Paris, who literally cannot resist a woman and vice versa? The Darkest Itch? So far I’m not much seeing what the titles have to do with the stories. Unless Darkest Night refers to the end where Ashlyn is *blippity bleep bbpppeeeeeeeeeeepppp*. Yeah, I could see how it might apply then. ;)

Normally, with the main couple being about as interesting to me as a snail race, I wouldn’t be able to give this any rating in the neighborhood of OK. But since I just am still soooo keen on the overall series concept and am jonesing for some of the secondary character stories (as in yeah, I’m buying the next two–I do believe someone dipped these in chocolate-laced crack?), I hereby slap this one on the ass with:

Rating: Three Scoops