Customer Reviews

The Darkest Night (Lords of the Underworld, Book 1)

5 star:		(71)
4 star:		(46)
3 star:		(37)
2 star:		(23)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

The Lords of the Underworld are a band of immortal warriors who have, for thousands of years, fought for the king of gods (Greeks). Insulted that they have not been chosen for the monumental task of guarding a sacred box (Pandora's box), the warriors decide to teach the gods a lesson. They steal the box and set the hordes of demons free. In the fray the box is lost. Thus, the evil can not be returned inside. As punishment for the deed, the individual warriors themselves become the *homes* for the each of the demons. So the demons of Violence, Disease, Death, Pain, Wrath, Promiscuity, Doubt, Lies, Disaster etc. are now inside the warriors forever. Like having a split personality, the demon urges the warrior to do its bidding. They all struggle against the demon inside.

Fast forward to present-
The warriors now live with their curses in Castle high upon a hill in Budapest. They keep to themselves for fear of reeking havoc upon the humans. Their enemies are the *Hunters*, a band of human warriors out to kill all the perceived evil in the world -the lords being their main target.

This book is about the warrior Maddox, who has Violence demon inside. His heroine is Ashyln a human who posses the uncanny ability to hear all the conversations ever made in a particular place. Voices constantly battle inside her head. She seeks the warriors in an effort to silence the voices inside her head. But she gets more than she bargained for......

I admit when I started reading this book I got flashes of Ward's series. But really who wouldn't? - the six warriors living all together, the gods controlling them (scribe virgin), the hunters (lessers), the description of the warriors (ones tattooed, beautiful, scarred etc). Then I realized that I'm doing a complete injustice to this book by thinking this way.

To me this book is more Greek mythological than paranormal. And I'm hoping Showalter will expand on the myths with the sequels. Unlike most paranormals the war these warriors are fighting is mostly within themselves. An internal rather than external conflict. They are not out to protect anyone else, merely to survive their own curses and possibly get free of their demons. And frankly I think thats a fascinating and fresh idea. I mean who wouldn't like to read more about a warrior with a compulsion to Lie, one who causes Disasters wherever he goes, one who has to inflict Pain on himself, or one who cannot be touched (anywhere) for fear of causing Disease? And lets not forget Promiscuity. ;)

I found the characters intriguing, the action well paced and the plot believable (well, as any paranormal could be). And I wasn't bothered by how quickly the H/H fell in love (its not like they had sex on page 10). True , there are many unanswered questions but I guess thats what sequels are for.

So, I really enjoyed this book and will definitely be looking out for the sequels. And for those die-hard Black Dagger fans? I say go and read the three chapter excerpt (above is link) on Showalter's website and decide for yourself.

I read quite a few paranormal romance series and needed a new author. This series kept popping up as a recommended series based on my previous purchases at Amazon. The covers were cool and so I went to the author's home page to check her out - and liked what she had to say about writing the books. So I ordered all three books.

If you like to read paranormal romance that borders on a little "unrealistic" or say a little less urban fantasy and more pure paranormal fantasy -- then this series may be for you. I myself waited several months before finally buying this series because I knew that I probably wasn't going to go for the whole premise of a group of warriors having to live with demons inside of themselves because they opened pandora's box. And I didn't.

I never really felt invested in the romance between the two characters in The Darkest Night because I just had a hard time swallowing how the whole plot played out. Or maybe there just wasn't enough development of the characters and their romance -- because of the tons of other characters in the book. I'm not sure.

Now while I did finish this book and found some parts enjoyable - the reason why I wouldn't recommend the overall purchase of it as part of a series is because I simply could not get past chapter one in the second book in the series - The Darkest Kiss.

Bottom line is that if you are a JR Ward fan or of other author's with a similar urban fantasy/romance style. Then you may not go for this series.

High in the mountains of Budapest there is a hidden fortress that houses immortal men who also happen to be demons - demons who strive to make a life for themselves while remaining inconspicuous and unknown to mortals and enemies alike. Maddox is such a man but so much more - he is a Lord of the Underworld and his curse is Violence. Thousands of years ago, Maddox was a prized warrior for the gods and because of this, he became angry at the female warrior Pandora because she was given the task of guarding the dimOuniak instead of him. Jealousy ate at Maddox until he was unable to stop himself from destroying Pandora and opening her box of mayhem. In this one act of violence, Maddox was doomed to eternally suffer the same fate that he awarded Pandora - death.

Institutionalized since she was five, Ashlyn Darrow has spent her entire life hearing voices in her head. If someone talked in the same spot as which Ashlyn stood, she is able to hear their conversations in her head and it is making her crazy. She is never allowed a minutes peace and has been treated as if she is a freak of nature her entire life. Hearing about a hidden fortress in the mountains of Budapest is like a dream come true because if what the locals are saying is true, then Ashlyn might be able to get help with her curse. With this in mind, she sets out in the dead of winter to climb the mountain where the sanctuary is said to be hidden.

The Darkest Knight is paranormal romance at its best. It is dark, gritty, and it is emotional. Maddox is the epitome of a tortured soul - and he was remorseful for his past deeds. Unable to fathom why he wanted Ashlyn, this immortal was very much aware of how precious she was and I found his treatment and protection of her extremely romantic. The character of Ashlyn surprised me. With my first impression I found a very strong heroine. Just how strong I would find out as I further read The Darkest Night. Ashlyn was willing to stay by Maddox's side every night just for the chance to love him. And love him she did.

The Darkest Night had me instantly hooked on this brand new series. I found myself on the edge of my seat and could not put The Darkest Night down. I had to know what was going to happen and more than once I had to gasp for breath when nuances of the plot started to unfold. If The Darkest Night is any indication of Gena Showalter's writing ability then I need to go back and buy everything she has ever written. I am just that impressed and can't recommend The Darkest Night enough. In fact, raise your right hand and repeat after me, "Joyfully Recommended!"

Talia
reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed

I just don't get this book.

Perhaps Sherrilyn Kenyon's amateurish Dark Hunters series has turned me off the concept, but as soon as Greek gods are mentioned I find I have a very hard time connecting with a story. Now, I LOVE Greek mythology, and the country itself, but in a paranormal romance...apparently not.

That, and the idiocy of the characters, and the annoying attempts at comedy in serious situations are so reminiscent of Kenyon I wanted to scream.

This book had me at the beginning, but lost me as it went on. The `heroine' had me cringing almost from the beginning though - there's nothing worse than a woman begging a man - a stranger - for, well, everything. But I was willing to forgive this when the plot still had me in its grasp. It lost me when the author suddenly felt the need to not only devote huge portions of the story to the heroine of a future novel, and then went and introduced a whole extra band of immortal men (and a woman). And not only are there too many characters, but most go by two names - I gave up on keeping up. In the end there were so many one-dimensional, interchangeable characters I found myself skimming the scenes to get back to the stars.

I believe many of the revelations towards the end of the book were supposed to be surprises, plot twists, whatever. They weren't. The betrayal, the chip, everything - saw it from a mile off.

The heroine's sacrifice at the end is unrealistic because it is too great. From all these men who balked at hurting a woman before, suddenly they couldn't care less about seriously harming the heroine? Stupid.

Gena Showalter writes her women in the same mould as Sherrilyn Kenyon's: immature girls who have no particular appeal but have the hero immediately enamoured. They are frequently too stupid to live, but somehow that's supposed to be endearing too.

The men of the story are supposed to be as old as time, from ancient places, and living in Hungary. So why, then, do they all converse in contemporary Americanised English? Why did I feel as though I was reading about a bunch of university students?

The two leads were not fleshed out well enough for me to get a grasp on them. Maddox was better than the clingy Ashlyn, a woman I was embarrassed for. Right from the outset she is clinging to a man who wants to kill her, begging him to stay with her, ....begging him to do her. I was mortified by her bizarre personality. Also confused by the fact that halfway through the story the petite heroine we kept hearing about suddenly developed oversized curves she was self-conscious about. And every chapter had her hair described as a different colour. One moment she's a whimpering idiot, and the next we're hearing about her costumes from the sex shop? It was as if this book took so long to write the author forgot who her characters were. I couldn't even get a grasp of the woman's appearance, let alone try to begin to understand her uneven characterisation.
Maddox could have been a great hero, but the author spent so much time developing so many characters - obviously trying to set up an entire series in one book - that we never got to learn all that much about him. But there was nothing Alpha about him - he was a bland, Beta, romance novel-reading, domestically gifted - uh - deathly ancient warrior?! The relationship progressed so perfectly with such perfect love and devotion I had to wonder if we even needed to read this couple's story.

The dialogue is weird throughout, and not only the odd Americanisation of the non-American characters. The sex scenes had the characters talking like cave-dwellers. Why were they speaking in single word, single syllable sentences? It was strange and unromantic.

The pacing is all off. The characters have sex or think about sex at the most ridiculous times. Think she's there to kill you? Want sex. Bomb goes off and everyone's injured? Have sex.

Showalter is a wordy writer (not that I can talk, based on the length of this review!). In the middle of an important scene she'll head off on a tangent so long I had trouble remembering what was going on. There was far too much internalising and not enough happening. I think this was because it was the first book in the series. Plenty of other authors - Lara Adrian, JR Ward, Jeaniene Frost, Patricia Briggs to name a few - have written brilliant first books in their series that are as good as the ones following them. Here, this is not the case. It often read like a manual for what's to come.

The goddess at the end was a deus ex machina if I ever saw one. I can often forgive JR Ward's Scribe Virgin, but I cannot forgive Showalter's Kenyonesque adolescent-acting superwoman who pops up at the end to make everything okay.

Despite her legion of devoted fans, Gena Showalter is not in the same league as the top paranormal writers out there. I invested in this series because of the hype, and I was most certainly disappointed. But the author has marketing on her side; by far the best thing about this series are the gorgeous book covers.

"Get ready for the next really great paranormal romance series, Lords Of The Underworld by mega talented, Gena Showalter which debuts May 2008 with THE DARKEST NIGHT.
By day, immortal warrior Maddox lives among his fellow Lords Of The Underworld in their Budapest castle as they try to stay away from the human world, for their demon companions urge them to do all manner of evil. However by night, Maddox is doomed to die a painful, terrible death and spend his time in hell's inferno. Centuries ago Maddox and his immortal brothers released the horde of demons from Pandora's box and as punishment, the gods cursed the warriors to each host a demon inside themselves. Maddox is the Keeper of Violence! When strangers are detected trying to invade their compound, the Lords believe they are Hunters, who want to destroy them, so Maddox is sent to kill them, for there is no greater warrior. Ashlyn Darrow is with a team from the World Institute of Parapsychology, who is in Budapest to investigate paranormal beings. Ashlyn was born with an ability to stand in one location and hear every conversation that has ever taken place there, which has been a nightmare for her. She'd do anything to stop the voices! When Maddox finds Ashlyn in the woods, even though he thinks she's Bait sent by the Hunters to entrap him, he is instantly drawn to her. For Ashlyn, being around Maddox is a miracle since the voices she constantly hears have suddenly ceased, as if they are as afraid of him as she should be! Maddox cannot help himself and takes her home with him, where the two will find themselves edging closer to a soul-searing test of love. Will this cursed couple be able to overcome great odds to be together? And what about the other cursed Lords: Lucien, Keeper of Death; Reyes, Keeper of Pain and all the others? Readers can look forward to their immediate sequels, THE DARKEST KISS (6/08) and THE DARKEST PLEASURE (7/08). The truly remarkable Gena Showalter has given paranormal romance fans everything they could want in her amazing new Lords Of The Underworld series: an angsty, complex, highly imaginative plot; dark, immortal warriors they will instantly fall in love with along with their destined mates; and all-consuming passion that will have readers begging for more!" - Patricia Rouse, Rouse's Readers' Groups

As a normal reader of all that is Gena Showalter, I was anticipating a good read - Boy I was wrong! This one absolutely blew me away. The story of Maddox and Ashlyn just struck a chord with me, it had me laughing, crying and pleading silently for a happy ever after.

The typical hero/heroine sacrifice has to be in my top five of all time. Okay enough with that my review follows:

1.) Believable falling in love time? (1= Unbelievable, 5= Believable)

3.5, only because it was very short time period (less than a week). I am a firm believer when you read paranormal fiction that the standard weeks and months need not apply for the falling part but the period should coincide with the emotional healthiness of the characters.

2) Believable World/Universe? (1= Unbelievable, 5= Believable)

5, Gena did an excellent job of creating her world and not overwhelming you with the unnecessary descriptive paragraphs that some authors love. The history was peppered throughout with the remembering of the characters.

3) Was the HERO unbelievably SCORCHING? (1= Yuck, 5= Get the Fire Department)

5, Duh! I had my Ashlyn move over you are not worthy moment.

4) Happy Ever After (1= There was a romance? 5= A box of Kleenex ending (with an epilogue)

4.5, not a 5 because this is the first in the series and there was no epilogue. I love and need one of those.

5) Reading time (1=Train reading, 5=Stayed up all night)

5, boy was the next day at work hard!

I would recommed picking this one up.

I was hooked from the first two sentences of Darkest Night which leads off Gena Showalter's ambitious new Lords of the Underworld series. Darkest Night stars Immortal Warrior Maddox, who is cursed to die each midnight receiving six strokes from the sword with which he slew Pandora, to spend the rest of the night burning in hell, and to awake each morning to the knowledge that he will repeat this fate over and over for all eternity. Possessed by the demon of violence Maddox struggles against the powerful spirit he carries within himself only to be overwhelmed by compulsions to kill, maim and destroy that he is unable to fully control. But in Ashley Darrow a woman with her own curse -- she is constantly bombarded by voices from the past -- Maddox finds something that calls to both the beast and man within him. And in the arms of this violent angel, Ashley finds not only peace but the promise of passion.

I loved Darkest Night which is far more than just a steamy paranormal romance. Showalter does an excellent job of pulling off the romance with her dangerous hero, while still managing an impressive amount of texture in her story even with the world building required by the first book in a series and introduction to a very large cast, twelve possessed warriors in all. Even though that sounds like a great deal of characters to keep track of in one book, Showalter handles it deftly by splitting the group in half. We meet Maddox's fellow Lords (and their possessor demons released from Pandora's Box) : Lucian (Death), Reyes(Pain), Aeron(Wrath), and Paris(Promiscuity) in the first half of the book and once we have them firmly established she brings on the second group former comrades who have been estranged for centuries: Sabin(Doubt), Cameo(Misery), Strider(Defeat), Kalen(Disaster), Gideon(Lies) and Amun(Dark Secrets). I already have my favorites. Add to this whole dangerous testosterone laden mix a background plot interesting enough to add depth to the story and to sustain the overall story arc for potentially twelve books --Showalter says that she has one planned for each Lord. A plot which includes tension and mistrust between the two sets of warriors who must work together in order to avoid annihilation by a group of hereditary hunters out to destroy the evil that their demons represent, plus a new power structure of the world due to the change of the ruling set of Gods in the world yanking the warrior's chain, insures that there will be plenty for the Lords to do in between the steamy stuff. I can hardly wait.

Fortunately the first three Lords of the Underworld books are coming out almost back to back, one month apart. If you want a taste of this very original new series, Showalter has excerpts for the Darkest Night and for the next two books The Darkest Kiss (Lords of the Underworld, Book 2) and The Darkest Pleasure (Lords of the Underworld, Book 3), posted on the her lordsoftheunderworld website. Once you're hooked on Showalter's dark lords you'll also want to go back and explore her other excellent paranormal romances. Heart of the Dragon (Atlantis, Book 1) from her Atlantis series and Savor Me Slowly (Alien Huntress, Book 3) from her Alien Huntress series are my favorites from Showalter's more serious side, though her lighter and humorous books are good too.

[...]

This is a good series for someone looking to read a different kind of paranormal romance, one thats hot and engaging.

That being said this is not the best of the bunch. It has wonderful portions...and really annoying ones.

The Plot:

The Lord of the Underworld are men cursed to house demons within themselves. Maddox is the keeper of violence. He is also cursed to die a painful death each night only to be resurrected each morning. Ashlyn is a woman with a psychic ability-she can her the conversations that took place in an area in the past. She works for an institution that studies paranormal creatures. But her gift causes her great pain-she cannot tune out the voices. Than she meets Maddox and finds that his touch can offer her much needed silence-and well as untold passion.

The Best Stuff:

The plot, the ideas, and the world. The use of Greek mythology is clever and entertaining. The other characters that are introduced are also captivating.

I was not wholly in love with either main character, but their romance is hot. There are times when you really feel for them.

The Weaknesses:

Ashlyn is a difficult character to relate to. She isn't at all strong or independent when the story begins, and not much about that changes.

Maddox is just flat out scary, and not always in a good way. I'm not actually sure at any point why Ashlyn loves him, though their feelings for one another are quite apparent.

I found this book alone to be average, but the series as a whole is well above average. I would recommend it to anyone who likes violence, fantasy, and unconventional romance.

I admit that I was shallow enough to buy this book because of the wonderful cover art. Some of the cover art of a lot of romance novels is just boring and boring bodice ripping stuff. If romance novels are aimed for straight women who are reading it for temperature raising romance, alpha males and sexy men, why are so many of the covers with just half naked or totally naked women?? So I thought this cover meant a story that was going to be paranormal, romantic, alpha male loving adventure.
Wrong.
The story was an intriguing setup, but it was poorly executed. Since when do Greek immortal warriors talk like contemporary trash talking doofuses? The conversations among the immortals sounded like dimwitted high school jocks. The introduction of the heroine was ridiculous. She is supposed to be an educated woman, but her "special" gift and her choice to seek relief from these Lords of the Underworld was incredibly inane. The use of the human female hostages took the story to even lower levels of stupidity.
When we paranormal romance fans have writers of the caliber of Kelley Armstrong, Patricia Briggs and JR Ward, no one should waste their time with this series.

I was reading the reviews for this book and totally understand where the ones who hated it are coming from. I'm a bit addicted to series and once I read the first book I can't stop until I'm finished with all of them, which was a good thing in this case specifically.

I'm writing this here, on the first book, because if you don't read it before the other books you may lose some details, maybe not important to understand the story, but significant to enjoy what you're reading.

I have to agree this book is not very good (it's not like a sacrifice to read it either). The series, though, is actually interesting. It seems like Showalter wasn't really sure about where she would lead it, but as she started publishing them she got into it. There are seven stories available so far, three of them shorts, and with each of them you start getting yourself involved with the world Showalter created.

You get to know the characters more deeply, learning more about their pasts, and the conditions that got them the way they are right now. It's not the best series ever, but it's sure entertaining.

Let's see if I can explain it right:

- if you love the sex scenes of paranormal romances, maybe you will not be so satisfied with this one. They're there, but they're not that well developed.
- if you like fight scenes with a lot of blood, magic and some major skills, maybe you won't like it so much. They're there, but again not that well developed.
- if you love complex stories with plots about villains, good guys fighting evil, secret organizations and mysterious we-don't-know-if-he's-good-or-evil guys, maybe you won't be all happy with this one. They're also there, but they're not that well developed.

BUT

- if you like paranormal stories with a little bit of the above,
- if all the series you like reading still don't have any new books,
- if you have already caught up with all the ones from your to-read-list and
- if you are looking for something funny, fast and that won't get you over-thinking anything,

go ahead and start reading this one.