When Darkness Comes

This is the first book in the Guardians of Eternity series. It stars Abby Barlow who finds herself in the middle of an urban fantasy world when her employer is murdered by wizards and her employer's power is transferred to Abby. Her employer had Dante, a vampire, bound to her by witches. When the employer dies, the bond switches to Abby.

Abby is a survivor. She was both abused and neglected as a child and has grown up to be tough and self-sufficient. She isn't very trusting and is baffled when dumped into a world with vampires, demons, witches and wizards. Luckily, Dante is there to protect her. Dante has had more than 400 years as a vampire. Quite a few of them were spent bound to an employer he was forced to guard and who couldn't be show more fed from. He was eager to be free when she died and not interested in being bound to Abby at first.

Abby had developed quite an interest in Dante while she was working for her employer and Dante more than returned the interest. While they are on the run, their attraction blooms into love and includes quite a few hot love scenes.

I really liked Abby's quirky voice. The story was fast-paced and engaging. Between Abby's need to come to terms with her new role and attempts by various villains to either kill or capture both her and Dante, the action was non-stop. The book was narrated by Arika Rapson who did a good job with both the voices and the pacing of the story. show less

I was expected your typical vampire romance with this book, I've seen so many people read it and seemed to have liked it, so I was like alright I will give it a shot. I'm glad I did, it's nothing like I've read before. It's dark, more dark than most of the other vampire books I have read. I like the characters in this book, I like the world building, I like how you don't just dilly dally waiting for things to happen, it's pretty much automatic bing bang boom, the story is alive. I quite enjoyed this book and will definitely continue on with the series. I'm glad I picked up this book, it gives me something that's dark, has a different type of world than others, and the writing is great, and the story keeps you interested from beginning show more to end, not really any dull moments with this one. show less

When Darkness Comes
3.5 Stars

The world building, plot and characters have incredible potential but the book falls short of living up to it.

Numerous intriguing elements are introduced - vampires, witches, zombies, the Dark Prince, the Chalice, the Phoenix, etc. Unfortunately, none of these is sufficiently developed and the reader is left with gaping holes in the world building and characterization. This is the first book in a series with 15 books so far, so it is possible that explanations will be forthcoming - I certainly hope so.

The romance fares better as the hero, Dante, is simply scrumptious and Abby is sweet and feisty. Their dialogue is one of the highlights of the book and their smexy scenes are steamy. Nevertheless, Abby’s show more stubbornness often leads her into TSTL territory; she is too accepting of all the supernatural events going on around her, and her transition from distrusting Dante to loving him is too rapid.

The villains belong to the typical megalomaniac class and are efficiently dealt with. However, there is a flaw in the internal consistency of the plot here when the author seems to lose interest in her primary villain and shifts focus to a new adversary who only makes an appearance in the last 1/4 of the book with absolutely no prior development. This dilutes the build up of tension and results in a lackluster climax.

In sum, the story is enjoyable overall and the hero of the next book is enough of a draw to continue with the series. show less

When Darkness Comes is the first book in a new paranormal romance series called the Guardians of Eternity by author Alexandra Ivy. When Darkness Comes is set in Chicago and includes demons, evil wizards, witches, and vampires.
This story is about Abby, who inherits the power of Phoenix (a good creation keeping the Prince of Darkness at bay), when her employer dies. Dante, the protector (or beast as referred to in the story), is a vampire and magically chained to that power to protect the Phoenix, also call The Chalice.
For most of the story it centers around the growing attraction between Abby and Dante and conflicts to include the dangers that Abby and Dante face in the form of zombies, demons and the acolytes of evil while trying to show more find the witches and have the Phoenix removed from Abby.
I again, was looking for a new paranormal series and found that this definitely fit the bill for it. I feel as though Alexandra Ivy did a phenomenal job at making the characters likeable and the plot entertaining, not to mention the hilarious back-and-forth between Dante and Abby with her stubborn ways and his arrogance attitude. When Darkness Comes is a hugely enjoyable read and a strong start to the Guardians of Eternity series, it has everything a vampire romance fan could ask for - sexy vampires and hot romance.
I am looking forward to the next book in the series, Embrace the Darkness, which hopefully is the story of the cunningly wicked Viper. show less

Abby Barlow has unknowingly become The Chalice, a host body for The Phoenix, the Goddess designed to keep the Prince of Darkness and his minions at bay. Dante is a 341 year old vampire who's been bound by ritual to protect The Chalice from all the demons and minions now hunting her. With the death of the current Chalice, and it's transference into Abby, they're now running for their lives from the demons that hunt the Chalice, in the hopes of bringing the Prince of Darkness back into our realm.

This book struck me from the beginning because the main character's last name is very similar to mine, and then on the very first page of the Prologue, the Duke of Granville is mentioned, and Granville is my Dad's middle name, taken from what was show more once part of his last name before he moved to America from England as a teen. In any case, it just struck me as quite coincidental. :-)

This is Alexandra Ivy's first novel and though the story itself was fairly decent, it did have a bit too much romance for my liking. Also, I thought her style left something to be desired. She was constantly using incomplete sentences as entire paragraphs! I know authors often do this for emphasis sometimes, but I thought it was very much overused, such that as a reader, you couldn't stop mid-way through a chapter because you might stop at a paragraph that makes no sense standing alone. I didn't like that... but I often see a lot of quirky things I don't like in an author's first novel anyway.

The story itself was supposed to contain an element of danger, and it tried to, but for some reason, it just didn't come across that way, probably because Abby and Dante were stopping to have sex every 1/2 hour. We hear at least once per chapter about his silver eyes, and long dark hair, and gorgeous body, etc. It's this kind of thing that made it too romance-y for me, and caused my attention to wander. Once I got beyond all these things though, I did enjoy the underlying story. If I hadn't, I would've given up without finishing. So I'm guessing romance readers might appreciate some of it more than I did. show less

Kind of refreshing to be reading paranormal romance again, since I've been dipping my toe so much on the contemporary romance pool.

Good start to a series. Solid. Abby was extremely likable and identifiable, if you discount the in love with a vampire thing. Same for Dante. Good banter and some sexy times. pretty good plot too.

I really enjoyed this book. It had a very tight, well-written plot and I'm definitely going to read other books in this series.I truly enjoyed the character of Abby, which doesn't always happen in other romance books. The last thing I want when I'm reading a romance is to be jealous of the heroine. I want to empathize with her. Abby Barlow is one of those sorts of heroines.If you like your erotica wrapped around a great plot, this book is for you.