The Darkest Pleasure

Another excellent book, and finally, Reyes / Pain is able to feel pleasure as well. Danika proved to be a very nice surprise, she's strong, able and ready to do what needs to be done. She will surely be able to help my favorite warriors in their fight against the hunters. ( )

This book is temporarily DNF for me, as I'm just not interested in the Lords of the Underworld at the moment. These guys aren't doing it for me...

The Darkest Pleasure
3.5 Stars

Synopsis
Reyes is possessed by the demon of Pain and can only experience pleasure when he is in agony. He also craves the love of a mortal woman, Danika Ford, who has been targeted by the Gods for reasons unknown and the only way he can win her love is to defy the Gods and his fellow warriors as well.

Review
After reading book #1, I was really looking forward to this story and most of my expectations were met.

The romance between Reyes and Danika is satisfying as they have a powerful chemistry and the conflict between Danika's loyalty to her family and her attraction to Reyes is well played out. Nevertheless, they are not as appealing as individuals. Reyes's affliction is distasteful (through no fault of his own but there are a few "icky" scenes) and Danika's willingness to act on behalf of the hunters until well into the book makes it difficult to completely identify with her.

The development of the overall story arc is the most compelling aspect of the book, especially the twists and turns with the All Seeing Eye and the well written action scenes. However, one issue that annoyed me in particular was the question of whether or not Aeron killed Danika's grandmother. Why didn't they just ask Lucien if he escorted her soul anywhere?

The set-up of Paris and Sienna's story also continues, and the more insight into his nature we get, the more I feel for him and the more eager I am to read his book (although I still have quite a way to go until then).

Overall, not a bad story and I will be continuing.
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The character of Danika was well done, if a bit flat. I do have to say "ick" to the heavy involvement of knives and blood and such in the relationship. The author has also managed to make it very easy on herself by saying that this character who must constantly feel pain is in enough pain just being away from "his woman" that he doesn't need to injure himself when they aren't together. Ugh. ( )

Plot: 2 stars
Characters: 4 stars
Writing: 3 stars
Sexiness: 4 stars
Ending: 3 stars

Overall: 3.2 stars

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