Customer Reviews

Darkness, 1: 3rd in the Blood Opera Sequence

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DARKNESS, I is the third in a series of books revolving around the family of Scarabae: powerful, ancient and occasionally vampirish. In this story, Rachaela's second daughter, Anna, is kidnapped by one of it's earliest progenitors, Cain. It mixes gothic horror with both Egyptian and Biblical mythology.
I found it a letdown from the first two installments (DARK DANCE and PERSONAL DARKNESS), which I loved. This volume is painfully slow, and nothing much happens. I hate to admit it but I found much of it actually boring. I do recommend the previous novels, however...and it seems that another one is possible.

"Tennebrae sum.
I am the darkness. Darkness, I"

"Darkness, I" is the third continuing story of the Scarabae. The child murderess, Ruth, has been killed and now her mother, Rachaela, is pregnant with another daughter, Anna, named for one of the Scarabae women Ruth had killed in Dark Dance. Anna is similar to her dead older sister--she, too, ages quickly and is just as bright and intelligent as Ruth, yet her temperament is not as violent.

And as before, with her first pregnancy, Rachaela is extremely detached from her child, growing jealous every day of Anna's kinship with Althene, Rachaela's longtime lover and "father" of Anna. Rachaela knows the Scarabae are very incestuous, and she believes she'll be overlooked by Althene for her daughter.

This everyday Scarabae family drama ends, however, when Anna is kidnapped, along with several other children, and brought to an ice pyramid as "guests" for Cain, an outcast vampire of the Scarabae family. Althene, as well as Malach (who is seeking the reincarnated Ruth), search for Anna, while, in the meantime, she is gradually transformed into Cain's child bride, Ankhet.

Until I read "Darkness, I", I thought this series was perfect. However, "Darkness, I" makes a drastic change to the storyline, one that's not very consistent or expected after reading the previous two books. Maybe if Cain or the Egyptian vampire myths had been mentioned before, I wouldn't have had such a hard time accepting this plot.

Despite my slight disappointment in "Darkness, I", I would love to see another sequel published, especially considering how this book ended. But I hope it's more like "Dark Dance" (#1) or "Personal Darkness" (#2). "Darkness, I" is a fair effort to the Blood Opera Sequence, but it's not a very good conclusion to this series.