What book are you?

So, I'm feeling better. It's been a long road, but I'm getting there. The plan is to start writing again soon, so keep an eye out. Until then, here's something fun for you:

What Type Of Book Are You?

You are what you read.posted on March 19, 2014 at 12:59pm EDT

Isaac FitzgeraldBuzzFeed Staff

1. Via flickr.com
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      Goodnight Moon
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      In The Night Kitchen
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      Extra Yarn
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      The Snowy Day
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      Everyone Poops
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      Corduroy
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      The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck
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      The Wonderful Wizard of OZ
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      The Berenstain Bears Go on Vacation
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Groan

I'm dying.

OK, not really. But I have been pretty ill lately.

So, there may be some delay in my reviews. They'll start back soon though.

Acheron, Sherrilyn Kenyon

Holy shit balls, Batman! I did not see this pairing coming!!

Wow. Ok, a lot to cover here. I've been waiting for this book.

As you can probably guess, this is Acheron's book. And it is a doozy.

So, lucky for us, Kenyon takes pity and doesn't make us relive the vast majority of Ash's horrific life. Most of the worst part is through his sister, Ryssa's point of view. She only finds out about what happened to him from 7 to 17 once she rescues him at 17. Thank god we don't have to experience it with him.

It's super sad and hard to deal with regardless.

For one, every time his sister, Ryssa, tries to help him, she makes it worse. You know she loves him and wants desperately to save him, she just can't seem to make it happen. Being a woman doesn't help either.

For Apollymi too. I can't imagine a mother having to deal with the loss of a child like that. Not giving him up, exactly. Or at least not only that, but not wanting to and knowing there's no way you'll never see him again. Never hold him again. I can almost forgive her for wanting to destroy the world. Almost.

But here's my holy shitballs moment: Ash's love is Tory!!

OK, you have no idea who Tory is. I know.

Dream Chaser, Sherrilyn Kenyon

We got another dream god here.

So, when Kat and Sin were fighting the demons in Devil May Cry, they got help from a dream god, Xepher, who was killed and sentenced to eternal torture by Hades. Kat makes a deal in exchange for his help.

He was sentenced because he supposedly tortured and killed people with his powers. Remember I said some dream gods could become addicted to the emotions they siphon from humans? Well, Xepher was one of those.

Only thats not really what happened. Satara, Stryker's sister, manipulated him into killing for her. Ok, she seduced him. Straight up. He was willing to take the fall for her, but she was supposed to wipe out his existence completely so Hades couldn't torture him. Only she doesn't. Of course not. That would be too nice for her.

So, now, the deal. If Xepher helps Kat et al, which he definitely does, he gets a month of freedom. If he doesn't show his humanity in a month, then he goes back to eternal torture. His plan? To kill Satara. If he's going to be tortured for eternity, he wants her to be right beside him.

That doesn't happen of course. Satara hears about his plan and devises one of her own. She uses a pair of bracelets that tie the life energy of two wearers to each other.

Upon a Midnight Clear, Sherrilyn Kenyon

Yay for Christmas!

Really this is a 2-in-1.

Our first story is very Scroogesque.

Aidan is a human actor who has been royally screwed over by everyone he trusted, even his family. Especially his family.

Now said family is out to kill him. To do so, Aiden's brother has called on the god of pain to kill him.

Leta, a dream god, has set out to save him.

The long and short of it is that Leta dies and then comes back as human and they live HEA. We do see Zeus for the first time and my previous assessment is accurate: ass hat.

Our second story is more interesting as far as the series goes. We get to see where all the characters are over the holidays.

There are 2 groups of weres. The Sanctuary gang and the non-sanctuary gang. After Unleash the Night, Wren and his friend weren't exactly welcome at Sanctuary, nor did they really want to be. Except Fang. He and Aimee are still star crossed. Though Aimee's father does indicate that if she chooses Fang, he'll still love and support her.

All the ex-hunters are together, too. Kyrian, Julian, Valerius, Zarek and families. Nick is there, too, looking in the window, but doesn't go in. Stryker can see what he sees and Nick won't do that to his friends.

I feel so bad from him.

The last is Ash's Christmas. He's with Alexion, Danger, and the demons at home. Styxx is there, too. Briefly. If you remember from Night Embrace, Styxx is Ash's human brother. He hated Ash and wants to kill him, but at the end of the book Artemis imprisons him and sentences him to live Ash's life as Ash lived it. To see it from his point of view. To see the things as they were, not clouded by Styxx's hatred. Now Styxx is trying to make amends. And failing. But he is genuinely trying.

Ash then goes to Olympus to be with Kat and Sin. Artemis is there obviously, but that not who he goes to see, of course. (As a side note, I read this one before Devil May Cry and it seriously threw me off. But that's neither here nor there.) Kat is very pregnant and Sin teases Artemis about being a grandmother. She freaks and stomps off.

Worth it!

Upon a Midnight Clear, Sherrilyn Kenyon

Devil May Cry, Sherrilyn Kenyon

So, I read this one out of order by mistake, just 2 books off, but still. I'm reviewing it in it's proper place, but hopefully I don't let my foreknowledge get the better of me and mess with the review.

So, we finally learn all about Kat!

I'm still surprised.

She's Ash's daughter! With Artemis'.

I really did not see that coming. I still think she thought about Ash in non-fatherly terms before. Not in a creepy way, but...I donno. It just seemed like she was...pining for him.

Which doesn't necessarily make it romantic. I know. You can pine for a father. But this is a romance series.

So, yeah, daughter. Ash doesn't find out until this book. Artemis made a half ass attempt to tell him when Kat was born, but Ash thought it was a child Artemis had taken from her mother to try to replace his nephew. That's how the gods got servants back in the day. Well, that and having parents leave the kid as an offering. Whatever. I would explain what happened to his nephew but I have no idea. We haven't been told yet.

However, instead of making sure he understood, she lashed (physically and verbally) out at him and kept Kat from him. She let her pride get the better of her. Needless to say, he was not too pleased when he does finally find out. Poor Ash, every time he turns around, Artemis has something new to hold over him - a new way to hurt him.

Dream Hunter, Sherrilyn Kenyon

So, this one threw me off a bit.

It takes place way before any of the other books, in 1996 to be exact. But I definitely think this is the place to read it. It's written in a way that I think if you did try to read it in chronological order as the first book, you'd be really confused. I think you'd miss some of the most important tidbits.

So, as I said, it's set way back in time. We actually see Nick as a teen, but I'll come back to that.

We meet Greary and Arik in Greece. Greary's family has been searching for Atlantis for generations. Unfortunately, it's ended in death mostly. After her father dies, she takes over the search.

Arik is a dream god who finds Greary in her dreams and wants to see her in the human world. But here's the problem, all the dream gods were punished by Zeus and stripped of all their emotions. Arik wants to be with her, but doesn't understand the feelings he has. Dream gods should only have feelings in dreams, when they siphon off from the humans who dreams they've invaded. Sometimes, they get carried away and end up addicted to the emotions. Like any addict, the can destroy in an effort to feed that addiction.

Arik was turned into one of those. Think incubus. Anyway, Zeus' curse is weakening, and their getting their emotions back, but Arik doesn't know that. It's a big secret. So, he doesn't realize the feelings he has are his own. He doesn't understand what they are either. So, being the emotionless psycho that he was made, he makes a deal with Hades to be human in exchange for Greary's soul.

Dark Side of the Moon, Sherrilyn Kenyon

Oh, Nick.

So.

A lot happening here.

Our main characters are Susan and Ravyn. Susan is a reporter who used to be renowned for her investigative reporting. She was disgraced and now works for a trashy tabloid. The kind that writes about bat boys and alien invaders.

The catch? It's run by a squire! If you don't remember squires, they're the human helpers of the Dark Hunters. They help care for them during the day to allow them to focus on protecting humans against the Daimons.

Ravyn, he's a rare were-Dark Hunter. See, if you remember the creation story of weres, you'll remember they were created by a king to save his Apollite sons from dying at 27. That makes the weres and Apollites cousins of sorts. So, becoming a hunter isn't something that weres really do or appreciate.

His backstory, like all Dark Hunters, is pretty sad. As a were, he received the mate mark. If you remember from the other were stories, were's get one fated mate. It's the only person they can procreate with. And it's all on the women to choose to stay with her mate. Ravyn's mate was a human. His mother encouraged him to tell her the truth about them, that if she loved him, she would accept him.

Well, she didn't love or accept him. She ran and told her village about them. Her village then attacked his and killed all the women and children. Everyone who was in the village was slaughtered. The men were out hunting when it happened. Some were bonded with their mates and died when the women did. That's how the group knew what was happening. They rushed back, but it was too late.

Ravyn's family has blamed him ever since.

Unleash the Night, Sherrilyn Kenyon

This was kinda a feel good story. The backstory is still really hard, as they all are, but the ending kinda gives of the warm fuzzies.

It's the first time we see things set right to a degree. In past books the characters find the ability to live with their bad pasts because of the love they find. Here, that happens and the past is rectified to some point, too.

So, here we meet Wren and Maggie. We've seen Wren briefly in the past as a resident of Sanctuary, the were-bear owned bar and hostel. He helped save Bride in Night Play, but he mostly doesn't talk to anyone.

Maggie is a human and daughter of a senator, who is kinda a jerk. I know, I know: A jerk senator? Who'da thunk it?!

Ok, so the good stuff: we get more info into the were world. There's a were council, refereed by Savitar. Now, I don't think I've mentioned him before. He taught Ash how to use his powers. He's referred to as a human, but he has powers that scare the gods. And absolutely zero patience.

We also get more of a glimpse into the Peltier's life, those were-bear's who run Sanctuary. In the past they've been portrayed as a kind, giving family who just doesn't want anymore fighting. Here they're seen as a selfish group who grudgingly puts up with invaders to their home to stay protected. Well, Mama Lo, the matriarch definitely, the others less so, and Aimee not at all.

Mama Lo wants Wren out, so she goes to the council, along with his cousin, to get an execution warrant for Wren killing his parents. Vane and Fang are both on it and try to keep Wren safe, but they're out voted. The only thing to save Wren is to prove he didn't kill them, so he and Maggie travel back in time to find that proof.

Sins of the Night, Sherrilyn Kenyon

So, this one had a lot of good backstory. Not just about the Dark Hunters, but specifically about Ash.

Here we meet Alexion, which seems to be more title than name, but they use it like a name. His real name is Ias. He was the third hunter ever created. He's also the one who got the "get your soul back" out clause established for all the hunters.. He paid for it by becoming a shade, which is basically a sadder form of ghost.

Yeah, his bitch wife intentionally dropped his soul.

But Ash hates the idea of his hunters suffering. He tries to save Ias, but wasn't familiar enough with his powers and kinda fucked it up. Since then, if a hunter dies in the line of duty, Ash takes them to a special island where they can be as content as shades can be. He even gives them some kind of form. He doesn't tell others because he worries they'll be more reckless if they know they can come back from it. Sorta.

A fair point given the attitudes of most hunters.

Anyway, as I said, Alexion is a title. Basically he's Ash's #2. Apparently over the past eleven thousand years, a pattern has developed. Every couple thousand or so, a bunch of hunters get their souls and go free, and another bunch decide to mutiny. When that happens Alexion goes in and saves those he can, and executes those who insist on fighting Ash.

I should clarify that those who revolt do so with the idea that the should rule humanity and prey on them. Its not just a pissed off Ash.

Seize the Night, Sherrilyn Kenyon

Yay!! Valerius is back!

OK, you have no idea who that is.

So remember Zarek from Dance with the Devil? This is the brother that I mentioned. I wanted he and Zarek to reconcile.

And Kyrian from Night Pleasures? Well, this is the grandson of the guy who crucified him (No, I don't mean that as a figurative crucifixion. I mean literally.) and who also looks exactly like his grandfather.

Oh, and don't forget Kyrian is married to Amanda now, and her twin is Tabitha, our heroine.

One big happy family, right?!

Maniacal laugh, maniacal laugh, maniacal laugh!

OK, I'm done.

So, Val's story is one of the easiest to read. He certainly hasn't had an easy time of it, and you feel bad for him, but for some reason it just didn't hit me like the others have.

And he does act like a dick. A big one. It's intentional, a defense mechanism to keep people away, just like Zarek acts crazy, but Val does a seriously good job of being a dick.

He and Kyrian come to a truce, if not a friendship, and Zarek moves to accept his brother - even making him a god like he is. I don't know if I mentioned it before, but we find out in Kiss of the Night that Zarek takes great pleasure in messing with Val using his new god powers. Well, now the sibling rivalry is on equal footing.

So, what happens? Well, everyone dies.

No really.

Night Play, Sherrilyn Kenyon

So, back in Night Embrace, we meet Vane and his brother, Fang, very briefly. They were wolves who could take the form of humans. Vane helped Talon by protecting Sunshine during the day when she needed to be out.

We find out later that in return the Daimon's attacked his pack and killed a bunch of the women and children, including their sister and her new litter.

As punishment for the decision that lead to the Daimon's attack and, therefore, their sister's death, their father (gleefully) sentences them to death. Something he's been wanting to do since they were born. To ensure he gets rid of them, he also sends some Daimon's after them.

Vane manages to fight them off, but Fang is seriously wounded and goes into a coma.

Now, present day, Fang is still in a coma and he and Vane are staying at Sanctuary. Hiding really. Their father is still out to kill them, after all. Well, once he confirms they are in fact alive.

Anyway. Back to Night Embrace. When Vane was protecting Sunshine a friend of hers, Bride, comes to chat. Vane is immediately attracted to her, but doesn't make a move because a) he's busy protecting Sunshine, and b) Bride is human and Vane is a wolf.

Only he's not.

Kiss of the Night, Sherrilyn Kenyon

I was very confused at the beginning of this one.

So, this is the story of Wulf. Wulf is Talon's best friend and he enters Talon's story (Night Embrace) by phone. What threw me off was at the start of this one, Talon is single. At first I thought I'd messed up the order, but a quick check confirmed the order.

Then Talon and Wulf have a phone conversation and I realize it's the same conversation as in Night Embrace. Just from Wulf's point of view.

This book takes place at the same time as Night Embrace and Dance with the Devil.

Once that was established it was all good.

So, Wulf is a Norse hunter - think Beowulf - who was cursed so anyone not of his bloodline forgets him after he leaves their presence. How sucky is that? He also never got vengeance.

How does that work, you ask? Well, Loki tricked him and exchanged his soul for another hunter's. It was never his choice to become a Dark Hunter.

Anyway, the reason I enjoyed this one so much was that we learn so much more about Apollites and what their lives are like. And how they view the Daimons.

Dance with the Devil, Sherrilyn Kenyon

So, at the end of the Night Embrace review, I mentioned Zarek and the cliffhanger. Luckily this book clears that up.

So, during Night Embrace, Zarek turned Sunshine over to the baddie trio. Then he changed his mind and protected her. For betraying the trio, and therefore helping to thwart their plans, they've decided to kill him. At the end, it looks like that's just about to happen.

Of course it doesn't.

So, Zarek was banished to Alaska 900 years ago when his village was destroyed. Truth be told, he's always thought he destroyed it. So did the other hunters. His memories are vague and disconnected though. No one really knows why he wasn't just executed for such a horrible crime. Turns out he didn't do it, but that's besides the point.

As horrible as the stories for Julian, Kyrian, and Talon were - as sad - this was worse by far.

Zarek was a Roman slave when he was alive - a whipping boy for his 1/2 brothers. You read that right, his father beat him into blindness as punishment for what his other sons did. His Roman sons.

That's bad enough, but now as a Dark Hunter he's alone, despised. Killing those you're meant to protect is the worst of crimes for the hunters. His fellow hunters treat him as a pariah. A rabid dog. He can't go out in the sun, so during the summer months in Alaska when the sun doesn't set, or sets only briefly, he can't go get food, so he starves. But immortals can't die of starvation.

Not to mention the emotional starvation.

Like I said, sad.

Night Embrace, Sherrilyn Kenyon

Book two in the Dark Hunter series finds us with Talon and Sunshine.

Yes, Sunshine. Her brothers are named Storm and Rain. To be fair, their father is a Native American shaman.

Anyway, Talon is our Dark Hunter. He worked with Kyrian to police New Orleans up until Kyrian got his soul back. Talon is an ancient Celtic warrior who pissed off a god of the Gauls. The god cursed him so that every human he loves will die.

The important thing to realize there is that Celtic and Gaulic gods are just as real as Greek gods. I love that. It opens up the storylines - though I'm still not entirely sure where the gods fit in.

Sunshine, as it turns out, is the reincarnation of Talon's long dead wife. They're soulmates.

She's also friends with Selena. Selena, if you remember is best friends with Grace (Fantasy Lover). She and Sunshine share a workplace, of sorts. They each have sidewalk displays, Sunshine for her art, Selena as a psychic.

Beyond the fact that all the pantheons of gods are valid, I liked this one because it doesn't end the same way as Kyrian's story. Kyrian gets his soul back and gets to live his happy human life. I expected the same basic story. Sunshine gets Talon's soul back and they live happily ever after.

Only this vengeful god makes it a little more complicated.

Night Pleasures, Sherrilyn Kenyon

OK! I'm finally seeing how these work!

Ok, so Julian, in Fantasy Lover. Back before he was cursed, his best friend was Kyrian of Thrace.

Remember Grace? Julian's love? Her best friend Selena is a psychic and is the one who found Julian's book and got Grace to call him out. Selena's sister is Amanda.

This is Amanda and Kyrian's book.

Amanda's family is like Selena, except for Amanda. She's the only "normal" one. That even includes a vampire hunter. Really.

For real.

Kyrian is the first Dark Hunter we meet and I finally know what they are! OK, a Dark Hunter is a warrior who has sold his/her soul for 24 hours to exact vengeance. Nope, not the Devil - Artemis. In payment, they become immortal hunters of Daimons. Daimons are Apollites who have decided to extend their lives by killing and eating the souls of humans.

None of those words make sense, do they?

Dragonswan, Sherrilyn Kenyon

So, this is the next instalment of the Dark Hunter series...and the series hasn't even officially started yet!!

So this is listed as "0.5." It's another prequel in the series, though it does seem to give more info on the substance of the series.

So we meet Channon and Sebastian at a museum where they're both admiring a tapestry. They go to dinner and instantly hit it off. They share an intended one night stand, but Sebastian finds he's been mated.

Oh, did I mention he's a dragon? ;)

So, Sebastian is a were-hunter. Weres, or shifters, were created as a way around a curse. I think. I was a little confused. Regardless, their creator had 2 sons. He wanted to save them, so through alchemy he spliced them with animals. Only, as such things normally do, it didn't go quite according to plan. It split the 2 boys, creating 4 - 2 with the heart of a human and the abilities of animals, 2 with the hearts of animals and abilities of humans.

If that's not clear, think of it this way: humans that can become animals and animals that can become human.

With the power to travel in time.

A little scary.

Fantasy Lover, Sherrilyn Kenyon

This is another paranormal romance series. I started it before Christmas - before things got all wonky.

A lot of times when I start these, I've gotten interested by a book later in the series. I see that one, think it looks interesting, and being a little OCD, go find the first of the series and start reading.

This is one of those.

Honestly, if I'd read the back of this one first, I probably wouldn't have given it a second thought.

I'm still not 100% sure how I feel about it.

So this is a prequel or companion novel to the Dark Hunter series. In it we meet Julian and Grace. Julian is a Greek Demi-god, son of Aphrodite, cursed by his 1/2 brother to be trapped in a book. Whenever someone says his name 3 times (Beetlejuice anyone?), he comes out of the book and must serve the person who called him for a month as a sex slave.

Grace is a straight laced teacher with a still mending heart.

Let's just set aside the whole "sex slave" as entertainment (ours not Grace's) for a second. I'll just say sex trafficking and slavery is very much an ongoing issue and shouldn't be trivialized.

Moving on...

Setting that aside, it was just ok.

Julian's story is heart rending, so that gives it a little help. Just gave it a little more dimension. Grace is strong and smart. If you like romance, I think you'll like this one. For me, I'm just not sure. I enjoyed it, and I'm going to keep on in the series mainly because I don't know where this series will go from here - Dark Hunters weren't even mentioned, so I don't even know what they are. So my curiosity will keep me going, but I think my initial reaction would have been accurate: Not a second thought.

Fantasy Lover, Sherrilyn Kenyon

Happy Holidays!

Hey kids! 

I hope you're all enjoying whatever holiday you celebrate. As the holiday's are typically chaotic, so too are my reviews. I'm still reading though, have no fear, but don't expect to see anything new for for a while. 

I will see you all in 2014!!   

Strindberg's Star, Jan Wallentin

This is a Swedish book translated into English. It takes place in Europe as the main characters travel around in search of the truth.

Sorta.

Ok, so our main character, Don, is arrested for the murder of a diver who found a body while diving in a mine. The body is perfectly preserved by some trick of the mine, so it's super old, and appears to be the victim of either an accident or a suicide. So, there's no crime there. The diver, however, took a few things from the cave where he found the body, got caught up in the notoriety, and never told anyone about them. He invites Don up to take a look, since Don is a symbology expert.

Don obviously finds him dead, hence he's arrested.

Oh, Don is also a prescription drug addict.

Eva, is his lawyer. This is where I think maybe some plot points are lost in translation. Don is in interrogation and Eva just shows up and volunteers to be his lawyer. She says she was in the station for another reason and heard about him. I admit I thought it was weird to begin with, but what do I know from Swedish police procedures?

Don gets out of the local station, but only as a transfer by the Swedish federal (?) police. They take him to the home of a German. A home that's part of the embassy, so technically part of Germany. The German tells him a fantastical story about the real reason for the 1897 Andree Expedition to the North Pole. He claims they were actually searching for the location indicated when an ankh found by the diver is combined with the still missing Egyptian star. A mystical location.

When it becomes clear the German's aren't going to take "I don't know" for an answer, Don and Eva escape. This starts the adventure to find the star and clear Don's name. Or does it....

The Lost Years, Mary Higgins Clark

OMG. So. Bad!

This is the first Clark I've ready, but I've heard her name more than once. She's supposed to be a great mystery writer, so I thought I'd  try her out.

What could go wrong?

I could not dislike this more.

Ok, in all fairness, there are elements of this I did like. It kept me guessing, for one thing. One big thing. Gotta like that.

It's just not enough.

Ok, so Mariah's father is killed over a parchment he believes, and is, a letter written by Jesus. We're not talking about Jesus' words written by his disciples. We're talking in his own hand.

Mariah's mother has alzheimers and the police think she killed her husband because he was having an affair. He was, but she definitely didn't kill him.

He'd gone to his friends for authentication of the letter and one of them wanted it for themselves.

And there's always the horrible mistress, she could have done it. And she is horrible.

I had a strange sense of deja vu with this one. Again.

Altar of Eden, James Rollins

Love.

I'm a fan of Rollins, particularly his Sigma series, but I've gotten a little...bored with Sigma. I still like it and I'll keep reading it, but the past few books have just been a bit...melodramatic? Unbelievable? No, I don't like unbelievable. All the stories are fairly fantastical. I can't really put my finger on it. Melodramatic is probably the closest.

Anyway, the point is, this was like old school Rollins. The characters are interesting but they don't take over. There's a good balance between the story and the actors in it.

Though, I could totally see Sigma wanting to snap these two up. Maybe if they did, we'd see them again. We could take some focus of Gray and the books would start moving again....

Anyway, so, here we have Jack and Lorna. Jack is a border patrol agent, and Lorna is a veterinarian.

Sounds kind of mundane, huh?

Well, Jack finds a ship full of strange animals and calls in Lorna. They grew up together, she and his younger brother were high school sweethearts. Over the course of the book, we find out that the brother died and Lorna was blamed, but Jack was party to the car accident that killed his brother too. See, Lorna was being attacked while the brother was passed out, Jack busted in and saved her. Without understanding the whole situation, he told her to drive. She crashed and the brother died.

They've kept the secret of what really happened all these years. Stupidly.

While the interactions between Jack and Lorna are great, what I like best is the actual progression of the adventure.

Dark Series in Reivew

So I tweaked it a little, but the chart shows all our combos with the books they're in. It's pretty much the same chart that's in the books.

OK, so where shall we start?

Despite the terrible covers and the mostly terrible titles, I mostly liked the Dark series. Is it a favorite? Nope. Not even a favorite romance. However, it's close. There were just a few things, small by themselves, that bring it down.

If I was comparing it to another series, it'd have to be the Troubleshooters series, mostly based on the structure - that kind of ever expanding circle of friends and family. Unfortunately, it's just not as good. Granted Troubleshooters isn't paranormal, but you'd think that'd give the Dark series more to work with. Instead it's the basics are the same every time.

This is my first complaint: at times, it was really repetitive. Maybe I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't binge read, but I did. We're talking language and overall themes. "Sinful mouth" came up a lot. And just the descriptions of sex. And then there's the basic premise of male Carpathian meets human woman. Something horrible happens, then they fall in love. It's not like I don't like the formula, but it does seem to be a formula. It definitely gets better in later books, though.

Dark Storm, Christine Feehan

I didn't know what was next, but this was certainly not even in the running.

We meet another ancient. Dax ran off the fight a vampire named Mirto. They were pretty evenly matched, so they were sealed in a volcano by Arabejila, Dax's friend.

The kicker? She's also Mitro's lifemate.

So, remember those questions and theories I had in my Dark Predator? Well, this just makes it all more confusing.

OK, Mitro is a psycho. Legit. Entitled. Always thinking he's better than everyone else, just no one can see his genius.

Dax is a hunter who has a talent for seeing someones darkness and predicting who will turn vamp. He and Arabejila's family were friends.

Arabejila had very strong earth powers. Mitro hated her because he believed lifemates made the men weak. He ends up killing her family before running off. He tries to kill her, but can't quite kill his lifemate. Instead, he does something worse: he binds her.

So, as we know, being physically separated from ones lifemate is very difficult. Meanwhile, the lifemate can typically feel/experience the things the lifemate is going through. So, all the horrible things Mitro does, Arabejila knows. He makes sure of it.

Riley and her mother, Arabejila's descendants, are traveling the Amazon to ensure the volcano with Dax and Mitro inside stays sealed. They don't know about Dax and Mitro, but they make the trip every year.

This year, it is not going well.

Dark Predator, Christine Feehan

This one was weird.

We finally get Zacarias' story, but it raised a few questions.

So, at the end of Dark Peril, the vampire coalition was going to test their attack plan for the Prince, against the De la Cruz family. After that, Zacarias was going to end his life feeling his brothers were ok without him.

We start here at the end of the battle, the good guy having won, of course. Zacarias decides to leave to go die, not even bothering to heal his wounds. His brothers try to stop him, but he's determined. He leaves to go "home," suddenly determining that home is the estate in Brazil. If you'll remember Dark Peril took place in Brazil. That's where the vamp attacked and injured the woman Zacarias saved.

So of course that's who saves him. Against his will.

So, he gets there, and he sees Margaurita, the woman he saved, riding her horse. He doesn't immediately know who she is. Watching her makes him happy, gives him peace, so he decides to sit out in the sun watching her and waiting for death. She sees him as he's starting to smoke, literally, and drags him inside to his lair.

He. Is. Pissed.