Customer Reviews

Sins of the Night (Dark-Hunter, Book 8)

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(31)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Alright we've all been waiting ages for it, and while I can not say that Sins of the Night was the best book in the series, I can say they I hungrily devoured it in 2 days of rabid reading. If you are not familiar with Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter series or missed the last book - STOP! You will be completely confused by the back story and won't be able to properly enjoy this book. It is not a stand alone novel! Go back and read all the yummy books in this series first in order to properly enjoy. That said...

Alexion is not your average Dark-Hunter. In fact he's something all together "other". And while he may not seem the most intimidating of our deadly supermodel like heros, he can be the most hazardous to your health. Dangeruese, our first starring role female Dark Hunter, learns this first hand when the two souless lovers fall for each other. As an assasin for Acheron who only comes out to play every few centuries Alexion could wipe out the entire Dark-Hunter race with a thought.

If you've enjoyed learning more about this mythical culture, hot love scenes, charonte demons, Simi's lust for QVC, or want to know exactly what the hell is happening with poor Nick Gautier buy this book! You'll enjoy it. You also need to figure out exactly where you've read about Alexion before. Trust me he is a memorable character- only under his original name from thousands of years ago. I won't spoil the surprise!

If you haven't had a chance to read any of the books in this series or if your just scratching your head because you've missed a few here they are in chronoligical order:

Fantasy Lover - Julian's Story

Night Pleasures - Kyrian

*Dragonswan - (a Tapestry anthology that will publish as a full novel later this year)

Night Embrace - Talon

Phantom Lover - V'Aiden (in anthology Midnight Pleasures)

Dance with the Devil - Zarek

Kiss of the Night - Wulf

Night Play - Vane

Stroke of Midnight (anthology containing short story of were-panthers)

Seize the Night - Valerius

Sins of the Night

Enjoy!

In this latest installment of the Dark-Hunter story we are not only treated to the "Beginning" but we are given a little bit more information regarding the legend of the Dark Hunters and we are introduced two amazing characters that will truly touch the reader. This is the first Dark Hunter story that made me cry!!!

Alexion has come to Mississippi to judge those Dark Hunters that are entertaining the idea of a revolt against Ash. Alexion has been sent to Danger, a Dark Huntress who still manages to retain a love of "life" despite the downside of being immortal. She makes Alexion feel "alive" for the first time ever. This man is different from any other man she's ever known. Who is he and what is he? Will she be able to help him at the same time protect her damaged heart from being broken yet again?

This like every other DH read is very engaging. Ms. Kenyon though this time around has created characters that will truly touch the reader. You will feel their pain, happiness, and love. She has given us a little more insight into Ash, and still manage to leave an air of mystery. This is one series that I highly recommend. Each book is amazing and this is a fine addition to anyone's personal library!

Official Reviewer for Romance Designs

I have been a huge fan of the Dark-Hunter series from the beginning, but this most recent installment was sadly disappointing. The story begins with Ash granting Alexion permission to leave the realm of Katoteros to avert a Dark-Hunter coup in Mississippi, which is being spurred on by Ash's nemesis, Stryker. Alexion wants to intervene to save an old friend of his from making a terrible mistake by believing Stryker's lies. It seemed like a good story line, except that it required the reader to really empathize with Alexion, something the book really failed to do.

Against this somewhat shaky plotline is the romance of Alexion and Danger. These are two of the blandest and least interesting characters in the Dark-Hunter world. Alexion seemed fairly resigned to his fate, and spent an inordinate amount of time quoting Ash, which made me wonder if Alexion had a personality and thoughts of his own. For Danger, I was expecting a smart-mouthed spitfire, and she failed to deliver on that front. She went along with Alexion's plans rather easily, and lacked that biting personality that all previous Dark-Hunters possessed.

As usual, Ash performed one of his deus ex machina endings, although in this case it wasn't quite the one you would expect, and for that I must give SK credit for breaking from her normal mode. However, as I was completely indifferent to the characters, it really did not have the impact it should have.

For those who are huge fans of the DH world, you may want to read this book for the information it reveals about Ash and the always irrepressible Simi. If you are looking for a good romance, though, I would give this one a miss.

In Sins of the Night we're introduced to a new Dark-Hunter character, rejoicing in the somewhat unlikely name of Danger. (Her real name, Dangereuse, is no less likely, as it happens). She's based in Mississippi, and Dark-Hunters in the area are rebelling against Acheron. He's a Daimon in disguise. He's going to betray them all. He's going to kill them. He'll send his messenger of death, a man in a white suit, to murder them. So, they are arguing, they need to join with the Daimons and fight Acheron.

Danger isn't sure what she thinks of all this - but she knows exactly what's happening when a man in a white suit mysteriously appears in her home. She knows that he's come to kill her. So she kills him first... and is then astounded when, after turning to dust, he strolls back into her living-room.

Alexion is no ordinary man. In fact, Alexion isn't even his name; it's his title. He's Acheron's right-hand man and enforcer. When Dark-Hunters step out of line, Alexion is sent in to kill them. The only problem with this is that it's the first time we're seeing Alexion! He supposedly has lived in Kalosis with Acheron and Simi for centuries - so why has he never appeared in earlier books? Why, in fact, were we told in Dance with the Devil that when a Dark-Hunter goes bad there is a complex judging process?

Okay. So, if we can overlook the reversal of Kenyon's own canon, Sins of the Night becomes the usual fun and excitement we can expect from Kenyon. Alexion and Danger are highly attracted to each other, but Danger is wary of casual sex and won't start a relationship which has no future. They both know it has no future because Alexion can't survive on Earth, in the guise of a mortal man, for more than a couple of weeks. Alexion is a former Dark-Hunter, the first to become a Shade (his story is told in the short excerpt at the back of the book, though it would have made FAR more sense for this to be a prologue. Some readers will have read this already, on Kenyon's website). Acheron saved Alexion from eternity as a Shade, but imperfectly. We're never told what form he has in Kalosis - a plot hole, in fact, because someone (no spoilers here <g>) who has known him on Earth sees him in Kalosis and recognises him immediately. The body he uses in Mississippi - his own body when he was alive - is temporary.

Alexion, however, hasn't had sex in over two hundred years, and he pursues Danger with determination. At the same time, though, there are Dark-Hunters willing to kill, and Alexion and Danger must fight them with no help whatsoever from Acheron - which is another part of the book which fell flat for me. Why would Acheron simply ignore their requests for help? Oh, sure, to make Kenyon's planned conclusion fall into place, but it felt forced for me. As did the sudden discovery that Dark-Hunters who become Shades aren't damned, doomed to walk the earth for eternity, unseen, unheard, forever hungry, thirsty and in pain. No: Dark-Hunters Acheron likes get something resembling a life back again. Only Dark-Hunters he doesn't like remain Shades. So is it really such a big deal? And maybe the rogue Dark-Hunters have a point, after all, if Acheron is really so prone to acting on whims and personal feelings.

Not the best Dark-Hunter novel by far - I'd probably still place it above Night Embrace (Talon's book, which I really didn't like), but I'm hoping that the next book will be better - and will let us find out what's happened to Nick since Seize the Night.

- wmr-uk

This is the first of the Dark-Hunter Novels that I've read. It was fairly easy to pick up with this book. The Author's Foreword suggested reading the short story "The Beginning" that was at the back of the book first. This sets up the reader with a basic understanding of the Hunters and where they come from.

Now it's modern day and the Dark Hunters are violating the rules and drinking human blood and not killing the Daimons. Alexion is sent to kill all those who have abandoned the code. He meets with a Dark-Hunter called Danger and begins to understand what love really is. Danger who trusts no one finds herself trusting this man who is so full of secrets. Together the try to talk the other Dark-Hunters back into the fold.

Alexion has a time limit and the Daimon's who are leading the Dark-Hunters astray are pulling out all the stops to kill him. Can Alexion and Danger save the majority of Hunters from death? Can they learn to trust each others? What will happen when Alexion has to return to his plane of existence?

There's enough to keep you turning the pages to the wee hours. The sex is non-violent and more of the romantic variety. The plot keeps you reading because the characters are interesting and varied.

The Alexion. Judge, Jury, and Executioner of the Dark Hunter force. The Alexion is called in to determine if a Dark Hunter is salvageable, if not, to destroy the immortal.

Warning:

1. If you are not a Dark Hunter fan, you should not read this novel without reading some of her previous work. There is a great deal of backstory that you must understand for this to make sense.

2. There is a foreward at the beginning of the book asking the reader to go to the end of the book and read the short beginning. Please do read that first.

That said, I loved this book. I stayed up all night reading the story of Danger and Alexion. Though most of Sherrilyn Kenyon's books are independent enough that you can read them alone, you won't want to. This story is not one of those. Dark Hunter fans have waited a long time for this installment, and I, for one, was not disappointed.

Dangereuse St. Richard is the firs Dark Hunter female we've really got to spend time with. While others have been mentioned, this is the readers first insider track, so to say. She is a petite thing created during the French Revolution, murdered by her husband. It is noted Artemis must have taken special liking to Danger, for Artemis' taste run to taller women who are more of the same stature of the Daimons they fight.

A rebellion is brewing in the backwoods. Dark Hunters are drawing together with restless thoughts and unease. A Daimon walks among them, sewing seeds of discord, and some of the Dark Hunters are buying in. Hook. Line. And Sinker. The Alexion is sent to save those who can be saved and judge those who cannot, and he's starting with Danger.

Kenyon weaves her magic spell yet again in this novel, touching the reader with the profound emptiness these Dark Hunters carry, the weight they bear protecting the humans who don't know them, who wouldn't believe them, and who live in blissful ignorance of the "other" things that live in their world. The humanity of the immortals is awesome.

I love the DH series and recommend them to all my friends who like witty, sexy vampire stories but I will not be recommending this one to anyone.

Gorgeous, tragic and 'other', Alexion is the enforcer who comes out of the night to kill Dark-Hunters when they betray their Code and start killing humans instead of protecting them.

Beautiful, sarcastic and a loner, Dangereuse St. Richard is a Dark Huntress who is being recruited to the 'darkside'.

Alexion shows up on her doorstep hoping for her help to save a friend from his former life from his very final judgment and the story goes from there involving demons, daimons and corrupt Dark-Hunters.

Alexion is suppose to be relentless and unfeeling yet he comes across as a deeply caring person in his interactions and inner dialogue involving Simi, Acheron, Dangereurse and the Dark-Hunters, especially his old friend, whom he is there to save. Likable, lovable and sexy with his mix of blunt sexual talk and sly innuendoes he should be a joy to read about but too soon the tradegy of his existence overshadows all, turning him into a depressing character.

I've long waited for one of the series to feature a Dark-Huntress as the lead, a female with an edge, some real steel and a serious attitude. Unfortunately, this was not it. Dangereuse is soft, reactive and irresolute. Outside of her butt-kicking skills and sarcasm, she's not much different than a typical 'bodice-ripper' heroine. The human Tabitha Devereaux (Seize the Night, same author) was tougher and emotionally stronger (and more fun).

The storyline, involving an arch-enemy of Acheron's from a previous book, was slow and, although the corruption coming from within was a new and should have been an interesting angle, it never moved beyond a skeletal plot device to put the lovers together. By the time it came to an end, I didn't care who lived, who died and who won.

The loveline, on the other hand, moved very fast. Which was understandable considering neither of them had had sex for over two hundred years and were thrown into close proximity during a crisis. Made it a little hard to believe it was more than infatuation though (although not as hard as it was to believe she hadn't had sex in the last two hundred years because sex without love isn't satisfying to the Dark-Huntresses unlike the Dark-Hunters who tend to do anything which will stand still long enough!). But I did think, after the 'fairy-godmother-Acheron' endings of the last couple of books, this one was more in line with the rules set out for their existences as well as a sweet happily ever after.

Overall, between the wishy-washy female character, the glaring sexual double-standard, the bare-bones plot and the lack of humor (I only laughted out loud once and the whole second demon thing was a cheap repeat of the charming Simi), I found it to be the poorest book in this series. The only saving grace I found was the additional information about Dark Hunter history, shades and Acheron.

SINS OF THE NIGHT by Sherrilyn Kenyon is the eighth full-length novel in the Dark-Hunter series, which are paranormal romances that feature hunky undead men who fight otherworldly bad guys and serve Greek gods. This novel is set in modern-day Mississippi and involves Alexion, a new character whose job is to kill Dark-Hunters who turn evil. He enlists the help of Danger, a female Dark-Hunter, who falls in love with him. The problem is that Alexion is not human, and once he kills the rogue Dark-Hunters, he will never see Danger again.

When I first began reading this book, I was uncertain if I would like it because I couldn't recall reading about Danger or Alexion in the other Dark-Hunter books. If anything, I'd rather read about Fury or Fang or the Peltier clan or Nick or any of the Dark-Hunters ever mentioned. At the same time, I wasn't all excited about reading about a female Dark-Hunter. To me, the appeal is that they are gorgeous bad boys, emphasis on boys....

Anyway, I found I actually enjoyed this novel. It was one of Kenyon's more focused works, and she spent a lot of time writing about the couple versus writing super-long sex scenes or other scenes featuring bad guys, etc. Plus, she was able to provide a lot of detail about Acheron without making him the most important character in the novel. I appreciated that.

While I would have liked more background on both main characters, I thought Alexion and Danger made a well-matched couple, and they were easy to believe in and to see together as lovers. I was a little disappointed that Danger didn't seem to have any special abilities, but oh well. The conclusion of the book especially pleased me because it didn't involve the typical "Acheron saves the day" ending, and the epilogue featuring the two demons was cute.

Overall, I enjoyed SINS OF THE NIGHT, as it was a little different but it still satisfied my cravings to know more about their world, especially Acheron's secrets.

In fact, if I had to rate my favorite Dark-Hunter stories, it would probably go #1) DANCE WITH THE DEVIL, #2) FANTASY LOVER, #3) "Phantom Lover" in MIDNIGHT PLEASURES, and a tie for #4) between NIGHT PLAY and this novel, SINS OF THE NIGHT.

However, if you are new to the Dark-Hunter series, I would not recommend reading SINS OF THE NIGHT first, as it gives away way too much info about Acheron, plus you'll be missing out on lots of back story and characters. Do yourself a favor and read the prologue to the series, FANTASY LOVER, followed by Dark-Hunter #1) NIGHT PLEASURES. If you like those, you'll no doubt be interested in the rest of the series.

After reading all the other Dark Hunter books in less than 3 months, I was really eager to get started on the newest book. I agree with the other reader that Alexion and Danger were the least exciting couple in the dark hunter series. I found it boring and the storyline just plain blah. However, it did shed some light on Ash and just for that it was worth reading. Hope next one is better!

Well, since Amazon for some reason decided to delete almost all of the less than four-star reviews of this book, I'm having to retype this review. Luckily, I always keep copies of my work so Amazon won't get rid of me that easily.

For the most part, I really enjoy Sherrilyn Kenyon's work. Certainly, the quality of some her other series has been really shaky (and there are a ton of them), but you can usually count of the Dark Hunters series to deliver an exceptional read. I have never been dissapointed with a true Dark Hunter book... until now. Such a shame as I was looking forward to the first book with a female Dark Hunter. It's not a bad book, but after such intense and well-crafted previous installments in the series this one just doesn't measure up. Not once was I particularly moved by the plight of the characters, even when they are dealing with some serious stuff. I'll explain in a minute.

In the last book, I complained about the messy loopy plot. Here, thankfully, the plot is much tigher, but as a trade-off, the characterization suffers greatly. Alexion is Acheron's, the Dark Hunter leader, "squire". When word reaches Ash that that Kyros, a Mississippi Dark Hunter, has struck an unholy alliance with daimon general Stryker, and is stirring up a rebellion with rumors of Ash being a daimon, Alexion is dispatched to diffuse the situtation. If that fails, he will execute all parties involved. Alexion is also a Shade, the ghost of a Dark Hunter who fell in battle and is cursed to live between life and death, meaning he can only live on Earth for a few days. He teams up with Danger, a female Dark Hunter who is initially suspicious of his motives. She's not sure who she should trust, if anyone, but eventually sides with Alexion and Ash. She and Alexion fall in love over the course of the adventure, of course, but how but can a Shade have a relationship with anyone... let alone a woman who is sworn to spend eternity battling evil?

The plot actually makes for a compelling story, as does the side plot about Simi's relatives, and brings to light some interesting facts about the mysterious Acheron, but characterization of the main characters is where Kenyon falls asleep at the wheel. Usually, she is very good about slowly revealing the character's histories, playing her hand close to the breast and giving relevant and often suprising facts with perfect timing. Here she takes her bucket O' characterization and just dumps everything at the readers' feet. Before the fourth chapter you will no everything there is to know about these characters. I mean Alexion already knows Danger's entire history and is infatuated with her before he ever comes to Earth. Kenyon has been trying to build up the mystery about Alexion's true identity for several months on the website that serves as a supplement to the series, but completely ruins it by giving it away before the first page of the story is turned in the novel's preface. That's not the characterizations only problem, as Alexion is by far this series most lifeless and bloodless hero. His flat personality doesn't do much to infuse him with any sex appeal, and sometimes he even comes across as downright unsexy. He's kind of like a Ken doll. Great physique, but still plastic and artificial at the end of the day. Danger isn't much better. She reads exactly like the heroines who have come before. Shouldn't someone whose lived as long as she has and experienced what she has have well... a little more meat to her? And as for her battle prowess... Tabitha Deveraux came across as tougher and more impressive. When these two are together without anything plot related together, the story is dead in the water.

I have to concurr that the book feels like a stepping stone to Ash's story as he feels like the main character at time and he rarely even appears in the book! His novel can't come soon enough, because though I'm sure it'll be a good read, he's starting to feel like a deus-ex-machina plot device that becoming an albatross around the series neck. After what happened at the end of Seize the Night where he turns a dark ending into a they all lived happily ever after- well except for Nick ending, I could never take the grave and mortal peril Alexion and Danger were experiencing seriously. Even though they do the "this love is impossible" song and dance, never once did I believe Asheron wouldn't come in and make everything better. In earlier books, being a Shade was said to be just about the worst thing that could happen to a person, so the consequences were dire if a Dark Hunter failed a his mission. Here it's revealed that Ash fixed it so the penalty for becoming a shade is actually very mild. Well, since I think fiction is much more exciting, and I don't think ANY genre ever should get a pass on this, when there is an element of uncertaintity to it. The characters can succeed or fail, and they experience the consequences of what happens to them. With Acheron here to play Cosmic Lifeguard for everybody, it just sucks out that element of uncertaintity or even the need to make sacrafices to reach the goal- such as having to choose between love and eternal life and ultimately having to lose neither. No matter how much these characters fret and assure me that the situation is dire, I can't take it seriously.

I eagerly read this book in two night, but it is a weak entry into the series. It's interesting plot and revelations about Ash make it a must for long time readers, but the tepid leads make it a poor choice for newbies to start with.