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In the shadows of the night, Darian has lived alone for almost a century. Made and abandoned by her former love, Darian is the last of her kind-an immortal Shaede who can slip into darkness as easily as breathing. With no one else to rely on, she has taught herself how to survive, using her unique skills to become a deadly assassin.
When Darian's next mark turns out to be Xander Peck, King of the Shaede Nation, her whole worldview is thrown into question. Darian begins to wonder if she's taken on more than her conscience will allow. But a good assassin never leaves a job unfinished...
Let me just begin this by saying if you like your sci-fi/paranormal/urban fantasy with just a little romance, you owe it to yourself to check out this series right at its beginning. What's the difference, you ask? Paranormal romance tends to be pretty steamy...not just the "Things that Go Bump in the Night" go bump in the night, if you know what I mean. (And some of them go hump, ahem, bump in the night quite alot!) Bonilla has chosen instead to let the romance develop through - I'm assuming, here - several books, comparable to Mercy and Adam taking several books to get together in Patricia Briggs' superb Mercedes Thompson series, or, similarly Kat Richardson's characters of Harper and Quinton moving slowly in her atmospheric Greywalker series. I admire this...it gives the reader time to know the characters, spot their strengths and weaknesses, to see if they've, indeed, met their perfect match and just how far they'll go to win or keep them.
Lessons aside, if it takes awhile to warm up to our Shaede assassin, that's just the way Darian wants it. Experience has taught her to trust or love no one. In the early 1900's, Darian was a young woman (yes, human) who made an advantageous marriage to please her parents. The match was less than pleasant as her husband was firmly in the closet, except when he came out to beat his wife. Her transformation to Shaede was performed by a seductive stranger who heeds her unspoken desire to disappear by making that physically possible. A Shaede can dematerialize with a moment's thought, a skill that makes her pefect for the job of assassin that she and Azriel, maker and now lover, take up to keep them in funds.
This backstory is a little slow to appear, but keep going...because years after Azriel has deserted her and is presumed by Darian to be long dead, she discovers that his tales of their being the only ones of their kind are just one of his falsehoods. It's when the reader is introduced to this large and imaginative world of every sort of Fey that the tale really starts to hum. Who Darian is hired to kill and why is really just a springboard to all of the mayhem and backstabbing that echo the human world all too closely.
As a reader of all sorts of paranormal romance and sci-fi urban fantasy, I found this book to be a worthy intro to a new and fascinating series...July's 2nd entry, Blood Before Sunrise, seems much too far away.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted December 12, 2011
The description interested me and i was excited to read this book but was disappointed with the shallow and less than believable character develoment. One small example, the lead chick, who's supposed to be cold, mercenary like, detached and tough as nails, demands double her payment to do a job and then allow herself to be forced to do additional security work for free and without a single complaint. One my things that distract you from becoming emersed and make you ask "really?" That said, it was still a decent plot and the climax was gripping. Not sure if i will read the next in the series or not.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted January 5, 2012
Great read! If you like charecters such as Chloe Niell's Merrit,Patricia Briggs' Mercy, and Laurel K Hamilton's Anita then this is the book for you! Great start of what I hope is a long standing series.
Anonymous
Posted January 10, 2012
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Posted May 25, 2012
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Posted January 3, 2012
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Posted January 12, 2012
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Posted March 30, 2012
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Overview
In the shadows of the night, Darian has lived alone for almost a century. Made and abandoned by her former love, Darian is the last of her kind-an immortal Shaede who can slip into darkness as easily as breathing. With no one else to rely on, she has taught herself how to survive, using her unique skills to become a deadly assassin.
When Darian's next mark turns out to be Xander Peck, King of the Shaede Nation, her whole worldview is thrown into question. Darian begins to wonder if she's taken on more than her conscience will allow. But a good assassin never leaves a job unfinished...