16074547His powers—inhuman
His passion—beyond immortal…

All her life, Ashlyn Darrow has been tormented by voices from the past. To end the nightmare, she has come to Budapest seeking help from men rumored to have supernatural abilities, not knowing she’ll be swept into the arms of Maddox, their most dangerous member—a man trapped in a hell of his own.

Neither can resist the instant hunger that calms their torments…and ignites an irresistible passion. But every heated touch and burning kiss will edge them closer to destruction—and a soul-shattering test of love….

Source Format Pages Publisher Genre Publication Date
Amazon ebook 384 Harlequin Paranormal Romance May 3rd, 2008

First of all- yes, I read a paranormal romance and I bloody liked it. A lot!

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I discovered this series by recommendation of the lovely Jazz- you can find her Lords of the Underworld reviews here! 🙂 Imagine my surprise, me who has commitment issues to series at the moment, when I saw on Goodreads that this is a 15 book series! With a wide cast of characters, each book seems to focus on each of them one at a time, while still keeping them all included (yes, I read a couple of blurbs and have the second book on Kindle already!)… It promises to be fun! If you do decide to check this paranormal romance series out on Goodreads, prepare for more… um… naughty covers! 😉 *Drew, you’ll love ’em, I do so solemnly swear!*

The Darkest Night is a brilliant start to the series- it jumps right into a delightful darkness that the Lords of the Underworld carry within them- and I say that they literally carry the darkness within them.

It all starts when Ashlyn travels to Hungary on business and she hears about the fortress on a hill housing angels. You see, Ashlyn hears conversations. Yeah, good for her.. but, no. She goes to a place and she can hear every conversation that has taken place in that very spot (be it room, street, etc) that has taken place there. Gift or a curse? Anyway, it’s those voices Ashlyn hears that in majority label the lords in the fortress as angels as they have done a lot of good for the town. However, some don’t agree. Some call them demons. And in a way, they’re right- that’s the “darkness within” bit.

Ashlyn has tried to find a solution to her hearing abilities because it has messed up many things in her life- relationships, childhood, and you can only imagine the information overload she receives! However, her ability also landed her a job with an Institute that investigates and deals with the paranormal.

Now, she wants to meet those angels/demons to see if they can help her control her ability and enjoy a bit of the quiet life. What and who she meets though? She meets Maddox! ta-daa!

Maddox is a “warrior” from the times of Greek gods. His curse is to live in bloody ‘harmony’ with the Violence demon. Because of something he did. Something bad. To the whole world! Anyway, this curse sees him dying every.single.day (night). A death bloody and violent, and when he dies he also spends the night in Hell, burning. Until come morning and bingo-bango, he’s pretty much fresh as a daisy.

I found out so much about the backstory and characters themselves without it feeling like an obligatory “Hello, this is example 1 and he looks like zyx, and he does xyz”.. it was all just so bloody (pun!) seamless and nicely woven into the storyline, every snippet of need-to-know information delivered at just the right moments.

Even though our male characters have their own demons to fight (quite literally), they are not evil at their core. Oh! Did I mention they are immortal? Well, unless you get to chop their head off, but other than that- yep, totes immortal! And each of them with their unique curse to carry. I swear, this was so entertaining. Even though Ashlyn did piss me off at times because when she was asked a question she hardly ever answered! grrrr!

Anyway, to sum up- there’s a decent plot here. Once Ashlyn and Maddox meet, there’s a more at stake. People get hunted, kidnapped and flown on a warrior’s wings to fetch a purse with painkillers. Quite neat! Truly! Handsome (I expect to various levels to meet everyone’s taste) males and females and some paranormal shebang. There’s the cruelty and chasing and killing… but also kindness…good guys v bad guys v good guys who might not be good or bad… You get the gist… and then there’s the love!

This is as good a time as any to go back to the shebang… let’s address the bang part of it. There’s sex in this book, peeps. On-the-bed-sex, in-the-shower-sex and against-the-wall-sex. So, three instances of sex which is totally manageable and doesn’t overshadow the whole main idea of this book/series… I hope it stays this way throughout because, you know, exhausted and headaches!

All in all… I truly enjoyed this series. It fits the bill for me with plenty of action and drama, a bit of spine-tingling love and some pretty good dialogue which in places had me chuckling.

If you’re into the paranormal romance thing at all- don’t miss this. This one blows Twilight’s Edward&Bella jam out of the park, folks.

The Darkest Night on Goodreads ¦ Amazon UK ¦ USA