Title: The Darkest Kiss
Author: Gena Showalter
Series: Lords of the Underworld, #2
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Publisher: HQN (Imprint of Harlequin)
Date Published: June 1st, 2008
Edition: Paperback
Rating:
She has tempted many men…but never found her equal. Until now.
Though she has lived for centuries, Anya, goddess of anarchy, has never known pleasure. Until Lucien, the incarnation of death–a warrior eternally doomed to take souls to the hereafter. He draws her like no other. And Anya will risk anything to have him.But when the merciless Lord of the Underworld is ordered by the gods to claim Anya herself, their uncontrollable attraction becomes an anguished pursuit. Now they must defeat the unconquerable forces that control them, before their thirst for one another demands a sacrifice of love beyond imagining…
My Review:
Now this was what I was hoping for in this series. The first book was good, but it was setting up so much for the rest of the series that it took away from the action and the story. But this book was fantastic, wildly entertaining, sexy, and everything I was hoping for in the first book.
This book is about Lucien (Keeper of Death) and Anya (the Goddess of Anarchy). We met Anya at the end of the last book and I decided quickly that I loved her to pieces. This book only made me like her more. I think this is the first book where I actually liked the female more than the male. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Lucien. He’s the classic tortured sexy man that I’m always tripping over, but I just loved Anya for some reason. I thought her character was fantastic and her personality was addicting. She’s smart, funny, sexy and not the least bit annoying.
In this story, it starts out with Anya watching Lucien. Apparently, even before helping out Maddox and Ashlyn in the last book, she became a wee bit obsessed with the mysterious warrior and has been watching him for awhile. This was her reasoning for helping out in the first place and now she wants to seduce him. Lucien, however, being the tortured soul he is, wants nothing to do with it. He’s felt love’s sting in the past and wants to stay far away from the hurt it brings. So, he pushes her away at every turn. But Anya is persistent and she does not give up easily…
In addition to Lucien and Anya’s story, we get to hear from Reyes and how he’s doing. Aeron is still trying to kill Danika and her family, so Reyes is doing all he can to prevent that from happening. Paris also has a bit of story in this one and some interesting things happen to him. I’m not sure what will come from that story line and I was surprised with where Gena took it — not what I was expecting at all. So we shall see what happens with him in the future books.
Overall, I thought this was a solid story. What I liked is that, instead of being just about Anya and Lucien, the story fanned out to encompass the other warriors. This is what I like to see in a series. It sets up the upcoming books quite nicely, gives us a little break here and there from the larger story, and it’s the best way to build characters in a series. So this was super entertaining with a lot of action, adventure, and romance. I’m really looking forward to finally hearing Reyes and Danika’s story next so I’m jumping right into it!
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