The Darkest Pleasure (Lords of the Underworld, Book 3)

Sometimes it is hard to branch out and find a new author that you will like. I find myself reading the same books and authors over and over, and I was desperate for something new. I loved this book, and all of the books in the series. I will buy more from this author in the future, and these books are going on my keeper shelf.

By reading the other reviews, you know this 3rd installment in The Lords of the Underworld series is about Reyes, Danika, and Pain (Reyes's demon). I won't bore you with those details.

I had high hopes that I could give this book 5 stars, and while it is very good and worth your purchase, it fell just a little short. The story is good. The search for the artifacts is definitely heating up. The showing of Reyes's softer side is touching - At times, you just want to swoon, "Ooohh, that's sooo sweet!" And a few juicy plot twists were developed for future books of the series. However, where this book fell short was in its readability. Here's why:

There are several characters at play here. Several times in this book, more than four characters (and sometimes upwards of ten) were in the same scene. And several times while reading these scenes, I had to backtrack several paragraphs to try and figure out who was supposed to be talking. Showalter was writing dialog without indicating who was speaking. And she'd infuse thoughts of one character, and then a quote from another. Many times, it all just blurred together. It got VERY frustrating trying to sort out who was thinking what thoughts and speaking what words. A clearer delineation needs to be made when writing a scene that contains multiple characters so that the reader doesn't get lost, as I did over and over and over again in this book. Also, it didn't help that sometimes she referred to the characters by their immortal name and at other times by their demon name (ie. Maddox/Violence). This simply added to the confusion as I had to stop and think, "Okay, now which one is Doubt?"

I noticed this confusion happening in book two, but not nearly to the extent that it did in this latest installment. As the author continues to write more books in this series, I hope she does a better job of identifying speakers and thinkers, because this series has great potential to be very enjoyable and entertaining.

Still not 5-star worthy, though...but definitely worth buying if you don't mind doing a little re-reading to figure out who's thinking and saying what.

Still not sure this is a 4 since I skipped to the end and skimmed over the last several chapters. Some great characters and wonderful story - but introducing a new villian 3 books in kind of annoys me. I'm in no rush to get involved in another 13- 14 book story arc (a la Anita Blake, etc) It is a good read but I can wait for next year.

It's Gena Showalter... need I say more? Her style of writing is some of the best that I have read (and continue to read). The Darkest Pleasure is the third book is the Lords of the Underworld Series and wow! If you haven't read this series yet, you are missing out! Immortal warriors who have to house the demons inside them that they let out of Pandora's Box. Like Gena says, she takes the story of Pandora's Box and blames it on the men ::lol::
It's a great series with demons, gods, immortal warriors and their enemies. Oh, and of course the women who dare to fall in love with them... whether they want to or not.

Maybe I expected too much. Book three was such a disappointment, I wish I had borrowed it. I found Danika confused, head strong to the point of stupidity and tiring. Reyes was a wishy washy drama queen. Nothing will make me appreciate this male character. This book did nothing for me. The sex wasn't even good. The first two had promise, book three lost me. Showalter usually never disappoints. I hope this series gets better, but I'll just borrow the books from this series. And stick to her alien books. So far with those books so good. I don't do many reviews, I've been told I'm a harsh critic. I read to be entertained. This book did not entertain me and it gets no where near my keeper shelf.