Review-Gena Showalter: The Darkest Night

I have started reading the Lords of the Underworld series by Gena Showalter. For me, this is a new author and a new series.

Title: The Darkest Night
Author: Gena Showalter
Series: The Lords of the Underworld
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Sensuality: Hot

Blurb: His powers — Inhuman…
His passion — Beyond immortal …

All her life, Ashlyn Darrow has been tormented by voices from the past. To end the nightmare, she has come to Budapest seeking help from men rumored to have supernatural abilities, not knowing she’ll be swept into the arms of Maddox, their most dangerous member — a man trapp ed in a hell of his own.

Neither can resist the instant hunger than calms their torments . . . and ignites an irresistible passion. But every heated touch and burning kiss will edge them closer to destruction — and a soul-shattering test of love . . .

This is technically the first book in the lords of the underworld series. There is a prequel but I decided to start with this one because I prefer novels rather than short stories and also the prequel doesn’t have any effect on the overall storyline.

First off, what drew me to trying this series was the premise. The heroes are all possessed by demons. At first I was thinking they would be looking for a way to get rid of the demons but nope, they have to learn to live with them because if the demons get banished the warriors would die. Here is the overall premise:

Long ago, twelve immortal warriors stole and opened Pandora’s box, unleashing the evil from within. Now they carry that evil within themselves. Violence, Pain, Death, Disease, Promiscuity, Wrath, Doubt, Secrets, Misery, Defeat, Lies and Disaster.

When a powerful enemy returns, they will travel the world in search of a sacred relic of the gods – one that threatens to destroy them all.

The Darkest Night starts off with the Warriors possessed by Violence, Pain, Death, Disease, Promiscuity and Wrath. We don’t meet the others till around halfway through the book, which was a good move I think. Too many characters all at once can do your head in.

Maddox who is possessed by Violence is the main character here. He has a double curse though. When Violence first possessed Maddox he lost all control and killed Pandora, so the Gods cursed him to die at midnight each night the same way as Pandora did, stabbed 6 times in the stomach.

Ashlyn Darrow finds herself on the warriors mountain searching for these men she had heard about who seem to have special abilities.

She is hoping for some help from the voices she hears. Ashlyn has an ability to hear past conversations from wherever she stands. Most times it can be debilitating as the voices lap over each other and pound into her head.

Maddox finds her and to her relief she finds that just his presence block the voices.

None of the men are happy about her being there as they consider her as “bait”.

There is a group known as Hunters that are after Pandora’s box and are ruthless in how they go about doing it. They have used humans before as bait to draw out the warriors into a trap.

This is how one of them ended up dying and the demon of Distrust that possessed him has moved on whereabouts unknown.

Although these men are immortal they can be killed by decapitation and a few other methods, as per most immortal type stories.

It’s a really good storyline and I found myself enjoying this read and the world that Gena Showalter built.

I liked Maddox and Ashlyn together and while Maddox’s presence helped Ashlyn with her voices Ashlyn’s presence helped calm down Violence. So it was a good match.

I did feel it fell away a little bit towards the end, some things were a bit too predictable, but overall I’m definitely giving the next one a go.

I will be updating my bookshelf with this series. Nice to have more books to read!!!!

I gave it 3.5 stars, nearly 4….but not quite.

Thanks for reading my romance book review blog.