Customer Reviews

No Mercy (Dark-Hunter)

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(32)
3 star:		(24)
2 star:		(21)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I am a big Sherrilyn Kenyon fan from the start till Bad Moon Rising and this book No Mercy. It looks like it was done in a rush to meet a deadline because not only it is short, it's also sold as a Hardcover book. The same sexual tension/ Innuendo. Not much background about this two lovers Dev and Sammia. Very disappointing. Paging Ms. Kenyon please revert to your old ways of giving us a funny, heart wrenching story with loveable characters and entertaining. We want the same flawless story plot that we can relate.Sad to say the last 2 books of Dark Hunter Series did not impressed me at all. I was very underwhelmed.

Sometimes it seems like there are four different people writing these books b/c they range from terrible to fantastic. I started out loving this book because the wit is there in full force--laugh out loud stuff. Dev has been one of my favorite characters since he first appeared so I was really excited about his book and I recommend reading it though it does not prove to be anything like the fast paced and filled out story telling we sometimes get from the DH series. There are lots of things left unexplained and the story gets wrapped up in a neat little epilogue that sort of left me flat. One thing I noticed and appreciated was that this book seemed to jump genres a bit from Paranormal Romance that started the series into Urban Fantasy--it's extremely PG-13. A good read, but left me on the fence about continuing the series.

While I really like Sherrilyn Kenyon's books, her more recent ones have not been up to par. I liked No Mercy but felt that it could have been better. The main characters Dev and Samia could have been fleshed out a bit more and I just felt like their love story was rushed.Also, I really wish Kenyon would put a hold on introducing so many different demons in one book. It's really hard to remember that info plus info in past books about stuff we should already know. The only reason I bought this book was because I was craving scenes of Savitar and Thorn. They are the only characters I'm interested in at this point(with exception of Jaden and a few others)and LOVE reading any little tidbit about them. Overall, it felt like she didn't spend a lot of time on this book and sadly, it shows(bad editing,wide-azz margins,fast paced with little romance,and jokes she has to go to great depths to explain to us).

Basically, I'd recommend borrowing this book from the library because you will be mighty upset that you spent hard earned cash on another Sherrilyn Kenyon book that is not very good quality.

I have been following the Dark-Hunter series for years. But I think this is the book that has convinced me to stop. Here we have the story of Dev, one of the Wise cracking, trash talking Peltier Bears and Amazon Dark-Hunter Sam Savage. Sam has the ability of pyschometry so anytime she touches something or someone, she sees their memories and feels their emotions. For this reason, she has not been intimate with anyone in years. But surprise, surprise. Somehow Dev seems to be immune to her and can also "cleanse" certain objects so that they don't affect her.

Now, Stryker wants to use her ability to help his cause. Demons want her dead (pretty thin plot). And the Hellchasers have imprisoned her for her own good???
And why is that?

Okay, I realize that this is fiction but the Dark-Hunter books USED to atleast have a believable plot and finale. This thing was just crazy...and not in a good way.

**Possible spoiler**

Is Sherrilyn Kenyon really writing these books now or has a Ghost Writer taken over?
Since when do you have a Dark-Hunter book with ONE little 5 second scene with Simi?
What was so special about Dev that he was immune to her powers? Sam wasn't the mate the Fates had made for Dev until later in the story and it was only done then as some sort of punishment. The actual mating was only mentioned as an after thought. And what was the purpose of getting the Girdle? It was never mentioned again after it was retrieved! It didn't help her any during the fight scene when the Demons attacked. And FLYING FIRE BREATHING MONKEYS???? Give me a break!!! This series has definitely Jumped the Shark. I'm getting out NOW. I may peek back in if Simi ever gets her book. Other than that, good-bye Dark-Hunter series.

Okay, I loved all the first DH-books. I found them getting less good the more she wrote - exception of course Acheron - but still funny. Strykers and Fang's books had been dissapointments for me and so I was reluctant to continue reading the series.

So I'm pleasantly surprised with this book, finally SK concentrates again on what I love in her books - the funny and unexpected dialouges. Dev always has a repartee. All characters are joking and teasing each other ...it's fun and relaxing to read. The storyline itself had a few flaws - I get the feeling that SK gets lost in her own created worlds - but it really doesn't matter because I don't read this books because of it's connection to reality ;-)

Why not 5 stars? Because it annoys me when books have logical flaws and this is something that happens often in SKs books - in this one, too.

Example / Spoiler : Samia reads Dev thought and answers to it when she first meets him...and later isn't able to read his thoughts.

What do you get when a Dog of War and an Arcadian Bear mate?

This book picks up right after Bad Moon Rising with Sanctuary getting back on its feet. This is one of those tie it together/stage for a big revelation books. The core of the story is about Samia and Dev and how do two people who are afraid of relationships and letting others become important manage to trust enough to fall in love. The course of the book ties up a few loose ends like what happened to Amaranda and Cael, as well as letting us get to know the Dogs of War. Thorne makes an appearance as the manipulative bastard we all love and hate. Stryker of course shows up and is an honorable villain. One annoying factor is knowing who and what Nick is while the characters in the story do not but all will be revealed in the end I imagine.

All in all its a fast paced story with lots of action, questions are answered while others are posed. There's the normal sarcastic wit we love in the hunters (Dark and Were alike) as well as the vulnerability they all carry and struggle with. It's a great story that seems to be helping to set up another amazing one like Acherons.

As a DH die-hard, I've very mixed feelings about this book. I want so badly to like it more, but the writer in me is a bit frustrated with pacing, story arcs and general editing.

Let's start with Dev and Samia, the main characters of the book. Hooking up a Were-Hunter with a Dark-Hunter was a nice and unexpected twist in the DH universe, but the story itself had about three or four "beginnings", meaning just when you thought the plot was about to progress, you got hit with another intro--another mid-plot prologue that significantly slowed the pace of the book.

Now, I understand that Kenyon wants each book to stand on its own so any reader can pick it up and dive into the story no matter where they are in the DH universe, no matter the book order. And in my opinion, that's a very smart move. Still, so much time is wasted on back story that the actual plot of the book gets lost.

I think the biggest problem is that Kenyon is trying to appease her fans by writing a novel in soap-opera form, where you get snippets of all the different plots and sub-plots in each episode. But because the DH universe is so massive now, any attempt to do this is going to be a failure, at least literarily. Revenue wise, the words "Dark Hunter" are an instant sale, but must we sacrifice aesthetics for cash flow? (We know the book's gonna sell, so why not make it a good one?)

There were several instances in the book that left me scratching my head and saying, "WHY is that even relevant to THIS storyline?" While the DH fan in me was pleasantly surprised and happy to get an update and cameo from certain characters, the writer in me just saw it as wasted space. I mean, really, was Urian's lil discovery 3/4 into the book necessary? And how many more breeds of demons do the Dark Hunters truly need to keep suspense going? I swear a new demon breed is introduced in every other book and along with it comes a drawn-out storyline that slows the plot down to an agonizing slug-demon crawl.

All that said, there were some moments of pure Kenyon brilliance in the book, but they were about as painful as that moment Artemis and Acheron first made love when he became a god. We all know that line, "Say my name if you want to ****." (Yeah, if I were Artemis, I'd have slapped him for stopping in mid-stride, too.) If there was any back story that needed expanding, it was Sam's. I mean, if Kenyon was looking to pad the book for hardcover--and no doubt, she was--she could have given us a lot more than two-second flashbacks and drive-by style rantings of a one-legged demon. The same for Dev, as well. I'll admit, his involvement in a significant Peltier event shocked me.

And then there's Nick. EVERYONE wants to know about Nick. The boy just keeps throwing us curve balls. One second, he can rival Acheron in the Badass Olympics. The next, he's just a big teddy bear. I get that he's struggling with his powers and his hate for Ash. But, Kenyon had such a gloriously poignant Nick moment that she could have expanded, only to completely waste it. When Nick and Sam were at his house looking at photos actually made me cry. It reminds us DH die-hards of what Nick no longer has and how shredded his soul is from lack of it. Expanding that exchange between two deeply wounded people could have given both characters the depth that a lot of DH characters are currently lacking. Unfortunately, Kenyon gave us only a nanosecond of that brilliance; it faded much too quickly.

I understand that readers love DH for its action, and of course sex, but we're so deep into the DH universe now that I really wish Kenyon would go back to cranking out two good books a year instead of cramming several stories into one hardcover. By time I got to Urian's shocker, I was so frustrated with the book. No, wait. Actually, I was frustrated the moment we had a kick-butt Amazon in the storyline that couldn't seem to protect herself worth squat. The romance between her and Dev suffered immensely because of characters coming out the woodwork, and Sam's gaffes as a DH, Amazon and 5k-year-old warrior felt painfully contrived in order to create a sense of danger and urgency. Had time been spent on Sam and Dev's back stories and not squandered on the history of the DH universe, I might have felt something more for them at the end. Instead, I found myself not really caring if they hooked up, split up or even died. (Sadly, I felt this way about Fang and Aimee, too.)

Still, we get to the end and Kenyon opens a bolt hole full of carrots on sticks that left me gasping in shock and wanting more.

As a writer, I feel my intelligence insulted by the disingenuous ploy. As a DH die-hard, I'm just happy she didn't pull the move Acheron did to Artemis. (Wow, I keep going back there, huh?)

There's a line her characters constantly say--a Kenyonism, I like to call it: "How stupid would I have to be?" Yeah, I feel that way every time I close a lackluster DH book to anxiously wait for the next one. I'm an idiot. I guess as long as Ash and Nick are dangling from a stick, I'll keep buying the books no matter how much the convoluted plots and poor pacing pain me.

Ironically, I now find myself looking more forward to the next installment of Chronicles of Nick than any Dark-Hunter/Were-Hunter book. The launch of CoN was fun and entertaining, the way the DH/WH books USED to be. CoN is too fresh and new to be weighted down by DH history. Let's hope it stays that way for a long while.

This one was not as good as Kenyon's previous books. It just feels rushed. My biggest complaint, however, is that Kenyon seems to be altering her canon (rules of how her world works)of late and defiantly saying that it was always that way, she just hadn't revealed it yet. Huh? Let's take mating among the Weres. Up until this last couple of books, if you had sex with your predetermined mate, your mating mark appears. Now she's backing off that claiming it only happens that way rarely. REally? Cause it's been that way in every other book, until now. But of course she needed to change it because she had to get Sam and Dev into bed quickly because there was so little plot and connection between them they had to do something to fill in the gaps. This would have worked much better as a short in an anthology. Even the type set shows they were trying to stretch a short story into a novel.

We love you Sherrilyn, but this one just missed the mark.

I read all of the reviews, but being a big Sherrilyn Kenyon fan, I decided to download No Mercy to my Kindle. I do feel that the Kindle price was high, considering there is no tangible book involved, but I was lazy and didn't feel like going to the store. I have also been waiting for Dev's story, and I was curious to see what happened after the fall of Sanctuary that occurred in Bad Moon Rising. I loved No Mercy and felt that it was some of her better work. In my opinion, it was much better than Bad Moon Rising. While Bad Moon Rising wasn't bad, it definitely was not my favorite. I liked that the whole formula seemed to change a bit in No Mercy... not a lot, mind you, and her books are quite formulaic, but it did change a bit. I could be wrong, but this is the first book that I remember in which Ash doesn't do the bargaining, but Nick does.

I never liked Nick's character until this book, and to me, No Mercy made him a lot more interesting. I'm also glad that we got to see Savitar in the book, because he is one of my favorites. I enjoyed the fact that in this book, the character background was made apparent, but not dragged out forever. I also was glad that there was more fighting than sex scenes for a change, and that the forbidden love thoughts didn't seem to carry on for nearly as long. I understand that things have to keep characters apart in order to build suspense, but Kenyon sometimes has a habit of dragging it on too long. In this one, there were more things than just the characters' mental states keeping them apart, and I liked that. The one thing about the formula she uses, at least you always know that there will be a happy ending. I generally read her books when I'm in the mood for something light, and even though the ending is predictable, I still want to see how it all comes to be. So, if you're in the mood for something light with a happy ending, and you love Dev, then I'd definitely recommend this book.

I loved reading this book because it was amusing all the way through. The only problem I had was all of things that happened. I mean, it was a lot of stuff. Like all of her other books she blended things together like chocolate and peanut butter. I do feel as if it was not as developed as her other books but it was still entertaining as hell. If you like non-stop action and straight forward heroines, I strongly suggest you read this.