Dear Author » Lords of the Underworld

Review: The Darkest Surrender by Gena Showalter

DA_January — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 19:00:25 +0000

Dear Ms. Showalter,

After reading Lord of the Vampires, I was encouraged to try another one of your books. Your voice can be light and funny and the sexual tension is fun, but that book fell flat for me. I noticed The Darkest Surrender in your Lords of the Underworld series had a lot of praising reviews, and the harpies sounded intriguing, so I decided to give it a shot. I’m happy to say that this was a fun read, and made me interested in other books in the series.

The Darkest Surrender is the story of Strider, who is an immortal Greek warrior possessed by the demon of Defeat. Strider must accept all challenges and win to appease his demon. If he wins, he feels intense pleasure. If he loses, he feels shattering pain. It is also the story of Kaia the Disappointment, a bloodthirsty harpy who has declared Strider to be her consort. She just needs to convince Strider of this fact. Kaia also needs a consort with her for the upcoming Harpy Games – a brutal free for all where the other harpies are intent on destroying Kaia. If Kaia has a consort at her side, he can heal her and encourage her, so his part is crucial. Kaia also feels that Strider doesn’t truly want her because she once slept with Paris, the Lord of Desire.

I went into this book only vaguely knowing the details of the setting. I think I read the first novella in the series, so I was familiar with the general set-up, if not what has happened since. Greek warriors let loose the demons in Pandora’s Box, and now they are cursed to house them inside their bodies. They are immortal now, but tormented by their very specific demons. I thought this was an interesting premise, and I didn’t have any trouble following the story, though it was obvious that there was a lot of set-up and relationships that I had missed in previous books. I think this stood well on its own, however.

I really enjoyed the harpies. They are a race of brutal, winged warrior women who steal, carouse, and drink blood to heal yet live by very strict rules when it comes to conduct around other harpies. I wasn’t so keen on the fact that they are all tiny and delicate and their skin glitters like a diamond, but I’m willing to overlook that as more was made of Kaia’s warrior-ness than her glittering. In fact, everything that governs a harpy’s nature deals with fighting and attacking. Kaia attacks other women she thinks are interested in Strider. She challenges everyone she comes across. The harpy games were a natural extension of the aggressive, combatative harpy relationships, and I thought it was a fun storyline. I also found it intriguing that in harpy relationships, the woman is the dominant, and she selects her consort, not the other way around. It’s a nice change of pace from the soul-mate trope, where the heroine often has little choice or say in the relationship. Kaia is also very close to her twin, Bianka, and I loved the close, teasing relationship between the two.

“What are you going to say to Lysandy, anyway? Exactly.”

Bianka shrugged her seemingly delicate shoulders. “Exactly…I don’t know.”

“Try me. Pretend I’m your disgustingly in love angel consort and confess.”

“Okay.” A sigh, a straightening of the spine, then lovely amber eyes were staring over at Kaia with trepidation. “All right. Here goes.” A pause. A gulp. “Darling, I, uh, have something to tell you.”

“What is it?” Kaia said in her deepest voice. She propped her elbows on the bar, the hanger hooks digging into her skin. “Tell me quickly because I need to spread my happy fairy dust and wave my magic wand when–”

“He doesn’t spread happy fairy dust! He’s a killer, damn it.”

I did feel like the story was fast paced and fun, but I also felt like the relationship was the weakest part of the story. Both Kaia and Strider are childish characters. Kaia has the mentality of a sixteen year old boy. Her apartment is covered in beer cans and frat-like decor. She loves pranks and arguing. Strider is equally childish at times. He’s competitive, sometimes surly, and his inner monologue is like that of a teenage boy. He even refers to his dick as Stridey-Monster. That made me shake my head (and not with amusement). While alpha, he struck me as more Type A personality than aggressive alpha male, and this was probably due to the nature of his demon. Sometimes their bickering made me want to put both of them into time out, but I thought they were a well matched couple, and by the end of the book, I thought even the bickering and juvenile humor between the two meant they were right for each other.

I don’t know if this book would be for everyone. Like I said before, the book is light and snappy and full of frat girl violence and an equally childish hero. I felt like this passage pretty much summed up the hero and heroine:

”When Kaia loses,” Juliette went on, “I’ll expect you to come to me. And maybe, after you beg, I’ll allow you to please me. And maybe, after you please me, if you can, I’ll let you use my Rod.”

Use my Rod. “That’s what he said,” Strider snickered.

She blinked at him. “That’s what who said?” When he offered no response, she demanded, “What did he say?”

Kaia would have understood the joke. Probably Kaia would have pretended a beer bottle was the Rod and jacked it off while laughing. Gods, he dug her sense of humor.

If that’s your kind of couple, you’ll probably enjoy this book. I did enjoy it, though sometimes I found the antics of both characters a little overdone. I am not sure that I’m interested in Paris’s book (which is next) but I liked the harpies enough that I’m going to go through your back list and read more about Gwen and Bianka. B

All best,

January

REVIEW: The Darkest Kiss by Gena Showalter

Jia — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:00:44 +0000

Dear Ms. Showalter,

Even though the prequel and first book of your Lords of the Underworld series failed to impress me, I wasn’t ready to give up on such a great premise. I hoped one of the later installments would work better for me. With this second book in the series, I have to say I’m glad I made that choice.

Times are tough for the Lords of the Underworld. Their bosses, the Greek gods, have been overthrown and locked in Tartarus. Their new overlords, the Titans, are harsh masters. One of their number has been driven insane (more than usual, anyway) by an order handed down by Cronus, the Titans’ leader. Hunters are intent on destroying them by finding Pandora’s Box, the very object that cursed the Lords to becoming demon-holding vessels in the first place. Their only hope is to find Pandora’s Box before their enemies do but that task is easier said than done.

Lucien leads the faction of Lords that live in Budapest. He holds the demon of Death inside him and it’s his duty to escort souls to the afterlife, whether that be heaven or hell. Long ago, when being a demon vessel was still new, he fell in love with a woman. It didn’t last long; she contracted a disease and became mortally ill. Even though Lucien knew he had to usher her soul to the afterlife, he couldn’t let her go and as a result, she lived weeks beyond the time she should have died. Soon her existence became excruciatingly painful and her love changed to hate. After Lucien finally performed his duty, he scarred his face and body to make him unattractive to the opposite sex and thus spare himself from going through that experience again.

Anya is the minor goddess of anarchy. Daughter of the goddess of lawlessness, she unfortunately shares her mother’s reputation for promiscuity. However, Anya is also the illegitimate daughter of Tartarus, the guard of the gods’ prison, and she bears the final gift of his paternal love: a key that opens any lock in existence. Because of this key, Anya is a danger to the Titans because she is the only one capable of freeing the gods from their prison — never mind the fact she couldn’t care less. She’s already freed the only people she cares about (her parents) and would rather leave the rest of the gods, who treated her poorly, to rot. But Cronus refuses to take that risk and orders Lucien to kill her.

I was pleasantly surprised by Lucien and Anya. While I usually like opposites attract storylines, Anya was so over the top wild, I initially found her interactions with the solemn and serious Lucien to be silly. And in some respects they remained borderline ridiculous but as I continued reading, I discovered I was having too much fun to care. Anya’s irreverent nature went a long way to balancing the unrelenting angst that can plague a series with this concept. That was part of my problem with the previous book. As I get older, my tolerance for unrelieved angst-filled brooding and posturing gets lower and lower. So it was nice to have a heroine like Anya who didn’t mind calling out Lucien when he let himself get carried away.

Unaware of his inner turmoil, Anya glanced around the room. “While throwing your tantrum, did you destroy our supplies for the Arctic?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t believe I once thought you were too controlled. Seriously, learn some self-discipline, for gods’ sake. You should be embarrassed.”

“I am.”

“Good.”

On the other hand, I hope I’m not picking up on a pattern that will continue throughout the series. Like Ashlyn of the previous book, Anya is a virgin. Now I can buy an inexperienced heroine with an experienced hero. That’s not my problem. I’m just not sure I can believe that every single couple of a series will follow this dynamic. I think romance readers are ready for more variety for that. Secondly, while Ashlyn’s reasons for remaining a virgin made sense, Anya’s reasons seemed very contrived. It felt like they existed for the sole purpose of keeping her “pure” for the hero, and I like to think we’re past that convention as readers.

Without the clunky setup and worldbuilding that plagued the previous book, I thought The Darkest Kiss was much better focused. The conflict of Lucien having to kill Anya and Anya not wanting to give up the All-Key carried through the entire book. That said, the ending was a letdown and I couldn’t help but wonder why Lucien didn’t do what he ultimately chose to do in the first place. It sounded like it would have saved Anya and him a lot of grief and trouble.

Even though some plot logistics and explanations (the reason for the butterfly tattoos) really bothered me, I still had a lot of fun reading this book. Sometimes you read the right book at the right time, and you end up liking it more than you would otherwise and vice versa. Maybe I’m just being easy today but a B- for me.

My regards,
Jia

This book can be purchased in mass market from Amazon or Powells or ebook format.

REVIEW: The Darkest Night by Gena Showalter

Jia — Mon, 05 May 2008 22:00:47 +0000

Dear Ms. Showalter,

Your Lords of the Underworld series first caught my eye when I came across the cover art posted on a blog. They are very striking to say the least and certainly did their job if my reaction was any indication: find out what these books were about. As I mentioned in my review of the series’s prequel, The Darkest Fire, I was even more delighted when I read the concept. And even though I ended up not liking the prequel as much as I thought I would, I still wanted to give the actual series a chance.

The series revolves around a group of warriors who, offended that their gods chose to entrust the guarding of a demon-filled box to a woman, decided to steal the box and release its contents into the world. Their plan was then to gather up the freed demons and reseal them inside the box, thus showing their prowess to the gods while proving the female warrior, Pandora, incompetent. Not the most brilliant of plans, in my opinion, but pride and jealousy can drive people to do stupid things and I think this was one of those cases.

Unfortunately, not only were the warriors unable to recapture the demons, the gods were furious. To punish them, they granted the warriors’ wish to guard the demons. But instead of using Pandora’s Box, they charged each warrior with the task of guarding a specific demon — by placing that demon inside the warrior, thereby letting it possess and corrupt each one.

Maddox is the keeper of Violence. Each day, he fights the desires of the demon inside him. He also suffers from extra divine punishment. When Violence originally possessed him, he fell prey to its wishes and killed everyone in his immediate vicinity. One of them was the female warrior, Pandora. Angered that their chosen warrior died by his hand, the gods cursed Maddox to experience a painful death each and every night. And because two of his fellow warriors safeguard the demons of Pain and Death, they get to share the fun.

Ashlyn Darrow works for an international organization interested in finding and studying supernatural phenomenon. Gifted with the ability of clairaudience, Ashlyn is sent to locate and identify targets of interest before being recalled to let the rest of the research team do the rest. She’s had enough of the glass tower treatment, but the strain of being outside is too much for her to handle. So when she learns of a group of men living in Budapest who might be angels, or demons, but are said to have mysterious powers, Ashlyn journeys to their mountain fortress to seek their help.

I love this premise. I really do. I just wish the execution was better. While clairaudience is not a psychic ability often featured in paranormals, a similar ability has been used before and by a female character who was much stronger than Ashlyn. Though I tried my best, I found it very difficult not to compare Ashlyn with Lara Adrian’s Elise and find Ashlyn sorely lacking.

When we first meet Ashlyn, she’s wandering the woods, overwhelmed by her ability and on the verge of hysteria. If she’d been trying to escape, this sort of reaction would make sense. But since she left on her own, from a company that for all their shadowy origins treated her well, I couldn’t help but feel that this decision borders on TSTL. I certainly wouldn’t go wandering in the woods alone in a foreign city I know nothing about, let alone seek out a group of men who might be serial killers or demons. While Ashlyn was certainly suffocated by her employers and ostracized by her co-workers, I never got the impression she was that desperate to necessitate such a decision so I had a hard time buying her motivations.

This impression was in no way helped by the couple’s first meeting. Ashlyn is being tracked without her knowledge. After Maddox dispatches the hunters, he then turns his attention to Ashlyn. And when face to face with a killer, what’s her first reaction? She tells him to shut up. Now I admit I haven’t been in many life-threatening situations, but I don’t think that would have been my first reaction. Maybe it’s just me. It’s true Maddox’s presence suppresses Ashlyn’s ability so she can enjoy peace and quiet in her head, but since I never completely believed Ashlyn’s desperation in the first place, I felt the benefits didn’t outweigh the risks.

What follows is something of a mess. The first half of the book is devoted to Ashlyn and Maddox dancing around each other and fighting their mutual attraction. Part of my unenthusiastic response to their romance stems from the fact I was never quite certain why they were attracted to each other in the first place. I think they’re supposed to be destined soulmates, which I admit is not a favorite convention of mine, but I’m simply not sure. The reactions of the demon inside Maddox didn’t help my confusion any. The Violence demon initially wanted to kill and torture Ashlyn but somewhere along the way, it started to like her? I honestly don’t know.

The story takes off in second half but there’s so much of it, I found it hard to follow. There were many characters, dead gods, live gods, demons, personal histories, vendettas, secret plots… It was a lot for me to absorb and process which were important and which weren’t. I might have had an easier time if the plot had been spread out throughout the entire book but as it was, I ended up confused.

Despite my overall dissatisfaction with the book, I still like the premise enough to continue with the series. Maybe one of the future couples will work better for me, and now that the world has been set up I’ll be better able to follow the story. C-

My regards,

Jia

This book can be purchased in mass market from Amazon or Powells or ebook format.

REVIEW: The Darkest Fire by Gena Showalter

Jia — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 20:00:16 +0000

Dear Ms. Showalter,

Although your previous works haven’t worked as well for me as I’d hoped, I was intrigued when I heard about your new series, The Lords of the Underworld. Pandora’s box? Hell? A horde of ravenous demons? Not only did the premise feature some of my favorite story elements, it sounded fresh and original, and that encouraged me to give your work another try.

In exchange for saving his beloved wife’s life, Geryon sold his soul to Lucifer. Now trapped in a demonic body, he guards the gates of hell, making certain the demons held prisoner cannot escape. Kadence is the goddess (or angel — the labels are used interchangeably, which I found a little confusing because I don’t equate the two) of oppression and was sent by the gods to watch the wall. Over the years, she’s become bonded to it. It’s through this connection that she realizes the wall is weakening and the demons contained within will soon escape.

I know it’s been said before here at DA, but I definitely agree. One of most difficult things about novellas is telling a fully-fleshed out story that fits within the shorter length. There’s simply not enough space to explore the story the way you can in a full-length novel. In this particular case, while I think the characters are nicely developed, the plot is a little shaky, especially towards the end.

That said, developed characters don’t always mean consistency. Even though I found Geryon consistent from start to finish, sometimes Kadence’s actions and thought processes made me raise my eyebrows. She struck me as too timid to be the goddess of oppression, which contributed to my perception of her inconsistent character. Halfway through, she embraces her innate nature but there just wasn’t enough development from her original tentative nature to her final dominant one to make me believe in her character evolution.

I thought the plot and conflict was set up well but as I find often happens with novellas, the ending was rushed and confusing. It didn’t leave the impact I expected, given the stakes involved. The wall is on the verge of collapse. The demon horde might escape to wreak havoc. Even Lucifer is given free reign on earth for a year. I consider those things very high stakes so I expected a proportionally dramatic climax and finish. The ending here, however, just didn’t deliver it to me.

As for the ending itself, I now fully empathize with many readers’ reactions to the main couple’s ending in J.R. Ward’s Lover Unbound. I should have expected it as this novella is a prequel to the Lords of the Underworld series and I think the series premise hints at the sort of ending you’d get in a prequel. Even so, I was still left with a giant WTF reaction.

In what seems to be an ongoing theme with me, I did like the idea of their romance. It reminded me of Beauty and the Beast, except the Beast never regains his handsome form and remains demonic from start to finish. I do think there’s something lovely in a romance between a man trapped in the body of a demon and a goddess ostracized by her peers, but the overall story and its resolution prevented me from enjoying it fully. C

My regards,
Jia*

This book can be purchased in ebook format only.

*Jia is away for a while and will not be able to respond to comments.