Courting Darkness

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Camille's books always come out as the strongest of the set.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Yasmine Galenorn, she writes a unique type of urban fantasy, very pagan, full of magic and all sorts of different paranormal creatures. The story in each book follows three half-fae/half-human sisters who along with their friends and family battle a demon who tries to collect seven seals which protect the Earth, and open it to demon invasion and ultimate destruction.

Camille is the eldest and weakest of three sisters. She is a witch and relies on her unstable magical talents and steely will to do what needs to be done. As a consequence she seems to be suffering the most through the series.

This show more time Hyto, a psychotic father of her dragon-husband Smoky (she has three!) kidnaps her and tortures the hell out of her to get to his son and kill him. It's a very difficult and painful journey of a woman who refuses to be broken, who finds strength in her anger in order to defeat her enemy and the enemy of her loved ones.

Very little in this book is about the war with the demons, it deals with Hyto once and for all, but don't worry, the action doesn't become boring or stilted because of that.

I adore Camille, she is a testament to all women and their inner strength, and I think she will stay one of my favourite UF characters for a long time to come.

Recommended for the fans of fantasy, Dark Swan series by Richelle Mead and Meredith Gentry series by Laurell K.Hamilton. show less

I'm a few books behind on this series but this is one really downer of a book. The narrator for this one is the eldest sister since the series rotates the main character. In fact this one the youngest sister is barely mentioned even though they all live in the same household. Camille's father in law has sworn vengeance on his son and kidnaps and rapes Camille with plans on killing her and Smoky when he comes for her. Of course Camille does get away and justice prevails in the end but Camille and the family does come together to support one another through all of this. Since the entire book covers only about a week not much to the main story arc gets pushed forward but there was a lot of infodumping about a short story from an anthology show more that happened right before this one so readers of the main line only will not get lost. show less

Listened to audio narrated by Cassandra Campbell. This story is focused on Camille, while trying to save Chase, Camille is kidnapped, abused and raped. A lot of different things pulling on Camille and her friends. Dealing with the emotional fallout from things that happened in the previous book as well as this new trauma, also new bad guys introduced. Very graphic, some things resolved, while leaving many open story threads.

I am a big fan of this series. I fell in love with the D'Artigo sisters from the start.

Camille has finally found happiness with her 3 husbands. Though she is worn down with the constant attacks by demons and the need to protect the ones she loves. She has just returned from helping Iris break her curse and now she is on to save Chase from unknown Fae. Not only that but Smokey's father is back looking for revenge.

I am so glad that I bought this book. It was amazing.

Out of the four Camille stories in the series so far, this is my favorite. Camille didn't come off as a bimbo as she has previously. Good plot an overall storyline.

Perhaps it is because I read the Otherworld series out of order, and started in the middle, but I couldn't really get into the characters. Each book is from one POV, but the one POV is one of three sisters. The books are a light read for entertainment, but they didn't draw me in enough to not be able to put them down and walk away for over a week. They were okay for one read, but not to stay on my shelf.

Hyto, Smoky’s ancient and lethal draconic father, has finished threatening from afar and is finally making good on his threat to make Camille suffer – blaming her for how much face he lost in the Draconic world.

Having a powerful White Dragon hunting you is a terrifying situation – but with friends falling into portals and the Elder Fae lurking around and running amok, Camille can hardly hide.

But nor can she escape the grasp – and tortures – of her ancient, sadistic father-in-law.

Oops, I spoke too soon.

Ok, a little unfair, but I can’t help but be a little disappointed in this book – primarily because the series were getting better. Better written, more focused world building and characterisation, more pointful storylines show more and at least some of the bloat corralled – or if there was going to be bloat at least it would be USEFUL bloat. So did Blood Wyne advance the main story? No. But it expanded relevant world building – the vampires – and developed Menolly’s character and relationships (and introduced new plot lines that weren’t all that essential but the Otherworld series loves its side tracks). So bloat – but bloat with a purpose.

But this?

The main storyline centres around Camille and Smoky’s evil father. Already that’s going to be shaky because Smoky’s evil father has been a pointless background looming adding nothing to the whole series for a very long time – it was the very definition of a storyline that could have been cut. It has added nothing in 9 books except angst and it adds nothing now. It wasn’t even used as an avenue to develop Smoky’s character to explore the dragons’ world building. It did nothing to advance the world building or the meta plot

Nor did it develop Camille’s character – unless we consider additional trauma to be a necessary expansion of her character (I don’t). We don’t see her develop any real connection to Aeval yet, despite joining the Unseelie court in a week (the whole book covers about that long). There’s nothing really from her relationship with the Moon Mother, her magic – or, well, anything.

About the only change to anything when this book finishes is Camille has some more scars and trauma and they pick up a grateful refugee to act as a maid.

The main plot line is pointless.

The secondary plot lines? Chase goes on a magical mystery tour of the Astral in which we have ELDER FAE (scary music) who are there… to be Elder Fae. I mean the concept was introduced last book and we’re going to just have them scattered about this book for… reasons. It kind of ruined the whole sense of the Elder Fae as a major super-rare terrifying unique forces around to have so many of them scattered around. Herne drops in to, I dunno, have massive genitals I think, because I have no clue why else he was there. The whole storyline felt like a clumsy addition – maybe it should have been broken off as a short story or just ignored as completely and utterly unnecessary.

Throw in some more randomness – let’s have Sephra drop in to top up Camille’s daddy issues because how else will we deal without epic catastrophic angst? Seriously he served no other purpose. He literally dropped in to repeat how much he’s disowning Camille.

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