Customer Reviews

Darkness Revealed (Guardians of Eternity, Book 4)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the 4th installment in Alexandra Ivy's "Guardians of Eternity" series and I recommend all four books highly. In this latest book, Conde Cezar is a vamp who has been carrying a torch for the elusive Anna Randal for over 200 years. When Cezar and Anna meet again the sparks fly and Anna finds herself being persued by the deadly Morganna Le Fey, cruel queen of the fairies who is hell-bent on killing her. Cezar is also holding a secret from Anna, namely that she's destined to become an "oracle" or a member of the exclusive high demon council. Only those with elemental powers are asked to serve on the oracle council. The problem is will Anna survive Morganna to become an oracle and more importantly will the council allow Anna to continue to love her vampire who has become more important to her than she could ever imagine? Filled with vamps, deadly fairies, imps, Arthurian legends, and one adorable and irritating French gargoyle named Levet these books are fantastic and Ms. Ivy is a terrific writer. An enthusiastic thumbs-up from a voracious reader.

Over two hundred years ago, Conde Cezar's immortal life changed. A vampire, he was used to being pursued as well as pursuing. When he notices innocent Anna Randall's fixation with him at a ball, he lies in wait for her knowing that she will go in search of him. And she does. Without clearly thinking his plans through and in a blaze of passion, Cezar seduces Anna. Both succumb to their mutual attraction to each other only to lose each other within minutes.

Anna Randall doesn't know what Conde Cezar did to her the night he seduced her but whatever it was, he needs to make it stop. Unable to form relationships with men, Anna can't make herself even date. Then there is her life. She is over two hundred years old and still looks like a young woman. But the most important question Anna has for Cezar is the strength and psychic abilities she seems to have acquired. It has taken her this long to find him and he owes her some answers - answers that Anna might not get if whoever is after them succeeds in finding them.

Cezar has more than paid the price for seducing Anna Randall. Two centuries of penance to the Oracles more than makes up for his seduction of her. Now, he has been given the task of protecting her from her arch enemy. Cezar knows that the attraction he felt for her so long ago has never died - it has just grown stronger. Forbidden to touch her because of her destiny, Cezar finds it harder and harder to obey. When her life is threatened yet again, enough is enough. Anna Randall is his and Cezar decides that life isn't worth living if they are not together. He just hopes the Oracles will understand.

Talk about true love! Anna and Cezar had no idea the plans they were setting into motion two hundred years ago when they couldn't keep their hands off of each other. Anna's life was in the hands of the Oracles, protected, and so Cezar made a grave error in judgment in his seduction of her. I like to think that had he known how important Anna would come to be that he would still have seduced her. I could feel the love he felt for her in every scene, especially his old world style of thinking that as a woman she needed protecting. Laughing more than once at Anna's inability to do what Cezar tells her, I couldn't help but see her feelings for him as well.

The path to true love is never easy; especially if you are protected by the chosen ones and the mate of a vampire. Anna's true feelings for Cezar, while she really wanted to be mad at him, were easily apparent and her confusion at his so called lack of attachment to her made me miserable for her. She wanted him to love her; and he did, with his entire being, but he was also stuck. To love Anna meant to lose her and Cezar was desperate to make sure he was never without her again.

Poignant, passionate and highly addictive, DARKNESS REVEALED is not to be missed. Alexandra Ivy continues to up the ante on these highly entertaining and emotionally gripping novels. My fixation with this series continues with no sign of letting up!

***Natalie S.***

In 1814 Anna Randal as the poor relation watches her cousin Morganna to keep her out of trouble. When her cousin vanishes, she follows only to be yanked into a room by the handsome Conde Cezar.

Attorney Anna Randal leaves Los Angeles for Chicago to attend a charity event where she plans to confront Conde Cezar. Over the almost two centuries since they met and he vanished without a trace, she waited for him to surface.

Conde knows Anna is in town as he can sense it and it feels good. His vampire pack leader Styx wants to know why the Oracle Commission is interested in Conde. He explains he is a guard to Anna, who is a potential commission member though there have been fewer than 12 in 10 millennia. When they meet Conde tells Anna he misses her blood. They both think back to 195 years ago when he grabbed her, they made love, and he bit her only to vanish. He hides from her that the Commission angrily grabbed him and only recently has he resurfaced. Anna tells him soon after he left, her aunt's house burned down killing her aunt and cousin. She also says she is an immortal but not a vampire demon like he is. She wants to know what she is. He says he does not know as he did not change her. However, a powerful magical practitioner wants her dead; Conde vows to keep his beloved safe while Anna falls in love with him but distrusts him.

The lead couple is a strong pairing as they have a one night history almost two centuries old and he knows information about her that he cannot reveal to her. The return of characters from previous Guardians of Eternity romantic fantasies (see WHEN DARKNESS COMES and EMBRACE THE DARKNESS) adds depth. However, it is the clever tie to King Arthur and Camelot that makes the tale although the final confrontation contains too much chatter especially from the villainess.

Harriet Klausner

I won't go in to all the details of what the book is about. Let me start off by saying that I enjoyed all of Ms. Ivy's books. I picked up the first one on a whim when I ran out of my favorite authors to read. I was not disappointed.

I can say the same of this new adventure. Anna and Conde (Cesar) were a wonderful match. And the addition of a little Arthurian legend with Morgana Le Fay as the nemesis was quite good.

It was a nice fast paced read with the emphasis on the building relationship between Anna and Cesar. With some magic and sexy vampires mixed in you can't go wrong with the series.

But I do have to say that I was a little upset with the way Anna was portrayed. After almost 200 years you would think she was a little more street smart or at least a little less "innocent". Although her naivete was part of the reason why the "commission" was so keen on her, it made reading the book less exciting. I expected her to be a little more strong. Although that is not quite the word I am looking for to describe exactly what I was picturing her to be.

Anyways, I still enjoyed the book and I am keenly looking forward to the next installment with Jagr. Yummy!

I'm still diggin' Alexandra Ivy's Guardians of Eternity series and "Darkness Revealed" is book four. This series is about smoking hot vampires, sexy werewolves, powerful goddesses, wily fairies, snarky gargoyles, and most anything else that goes 'bump in the night'. While these stories are every bit as hot as many others available, for me this author keeps the tone lighter. There's still action, mystery, and suspense--but the sense of looming evil isn't there...and I enjoy that for a change!

Cezar met an incredible woman two hundred years ago, but the price he paid for that night was imprisonment to the Commission of Oracles. For one unforgettable encounter, he's had to live like a eunuch and serve as their lapdog for all these long, lonely years. Now, he's been turned loose with a specific mission--to act as her protector. To keep her safe while she fulfills her destinies. And no matter how strong their attraction is, no matter how close they grow, he knows he will eventually lose her.

Anna blamed Cezar for changing her life two hundred years ago. He took her innocence, turned her into some kind of creature that doesn't die, and was gone before she woke. She returned home to find her only family, an aunt and cousin, dead in a house fire and her life in danger. So when Cezar surfaces again, Anna has plans for him. She will capture him and force him to tell her exactly what she is. And surely she's exaggerated her weakness for him over the years, right?

I liked Anna. She didn't panic, she didn't do stupid things, she just buckled down and did what she needed to do (including Cezar!). But Cezar? Oh baby, I want one of those. He fought his connection yes...but once he knew what Anna meant to him, it was ALL about her. Both of these characters had to learn to compromise and lean on each other and admit to their feelings. Remembering makes me smile even now.

The contemporary setting is perfect for this story which is more of a romantic urban fantasy. The lead and secondary characters stay true to their natures throughout and readers even get a glimpse of the next book's hero! Ivy can write some steamy love scenes, but emotion still rules the day. "Darkness Unleashed" is up next in December of 2009 and it's already on my 'buy' list.

I never can wait for the next Ivy book to come out. I love the characters. This was not a disappointment, it had all the previous characters in it which were great to revisit. My only complaint, if it even is a complaint, there wasn't as much humor in this book as in the first two. I actually laughed out loud in places in the first two books and grinned a lot. I am however very much looking forward to the next book in this series coming in December.

In London over 200 years ago, Cezar and Anna attend the same party, Cezar seduces an innocent Anna and he is punished by the commission for the next 200 years. Anna wakes from her seduction and everything has changed, her home is burned down killing her aunt and cousin, she is forced to survive on her own and now after Cezar's bite she is not aging. 200 years later Anna wants answers from Cezar and she wants them now! Anna has no idea why she has not aged a day in 200 years and has developed some strange powers and fears it is because it is from Cezar, who she thinks may be a vampire if one can really believe in vampires. Since they last met Cezar has been dreaming of Anna, unable to get her out of his mind and now the commission has sent him to protect her, knowing already he will with his very life if he has to. Since Anna has arrived in Chicago to confront Cezar her life has been in danger, someone very powerful wants her dead. Now Anna must learn to develop and control her powers because her and Cezar's lives depend on it!

The passion in this book burns hot, even after 200 years and even with all of the distrust these two are drawn to each other, like a moth to a flame. Cezar has a fierce desire to protect Anna, even from herself. Anna is coming into a lot of power that overwhelms her that she can't always control. She has a powerful force after her and she must struggle with her powers, her feelings towards Cezar and her desire for justice! Good thing she's just the woman to handle it all and be victorious!

The series is amazing. I love this book and the characters are great because you fall in love with all of them.

Anna Randal couldn't forget the man--no, vampire--who'd seduced her, then left her, on that unforgettable night so almost two centuries ago. How could she when she found herself possessed of powers that no human should have? He must have given them to her with his bite and so she searched for him and was elated when she found him in Chicago, only to realize he still affected her strongly and she may be getting more than the answers she wished to have.

As for Conde Cezar, he was forced from the bed that long-ago night to slave for the Oracles, the voice of justice in the demon world. But now he was tasked to protect Anna from an evil that sought to kill her, and he would fulfill his duty or die trying.

If you've read my previous reviews of Alexandra Ivy's books (Darkness Unleashed, Beyond the Darkness, Embrace the Darkness), you'd know that I absolutely love her writing. She has a way of pulling you into her world, and Darkness Revealed is no exception. It could be due to the way she employed only the absolute essential descriptions of the characters and the setting. This serves her well especially when her stories are romance interspersed with lots and lots of action. Magic, mayhem and violence galore! Add to that mix a gorgeous, protective hero and a strong, smart heroine and you've got a book that's an irresistible must-read!

There was, however, a slight flaw in this novel. That I could see, anyway. I don't believe for a moment that the villain would've known of Anna and not kill her right away. I mean, the villain struck me as the type to make sure that any threat wouldn't be left alive for even one second, even if the threat hadn't been fully established yet, whereas Anna was left alive for years while the villain tried to ascertain if she was a threat or not. Such dilly-dallying just isn't consistent with the villain's character. That said, this little detail didn't deter my enjoyment of this story. Whenever I see a book with the name Alexandra Ivy on it, I automatically pick it up, knowing I'm in for a good and enjoyable ride.

By the way, I didn't read the books in this series in sequence but that didn't affect my enjoyment at all. The books are standalones and it was fun to revisit old characters before we saw how the right heroine could fell these tall, strong vamps.

Reviewed by Silver
for The Romance Reviews

Another book that I couldn't put down, boy, that Alexander Ivy can write. I read it on my lunch hour and almost forget to eat. It has adventure, romance a strong female and all the common heros and villains, like werewolves and vampires and the comic Levet, my favorite French gargoyle. What else could you want? Write more books Miss Ivy, Please.