The Darkest Surrender by Gena Showalter
My rating: 4.5 of 5 flames
Strider, one of my favorite Lords, finally found his match. Kaia, Harpy extraordinaire, has known for a while now that Strider was her Consort. Too bad he doesn’t want anything to do with her.
Strider’s book was awesome, almost as awesome as Strider himself, oh ego-check 😉 You’ll catch Strider doing those ego-checks throughout just to remind himself that oh wait, it’s not ego if it’s true. He was a fun hero to have. The only thing that drove me nuts was the Harpy Games. While cool to see, I didn’t like the amount of time it took from the romance. The plot was super cool though, and so was the sabotage.
Someone is out to get Kaia, and while they think they know who it is, we also have that person letting Hunters know where Kaia and Strider, Gwen and Sabin, and Bianka and Lysander are. That’s fighting dirty. Seeing Kaia’s backstory and finding out that she is known amongst Harpies as Kaia the Disappointment was pretty heartwrenching. She screwed up at 14 and the only Harpies who know her awesomeness are her sisters. It was so frustrating because I wanted to reach through the book and strangle a few characters.
But the romance was fun, because Strider began to realize that Kaia challenged his demon in a good way, without using it against him like previous girlfriends had. He also finally sucked it up and decided to see if he would in fact be better than Paris in bed with her. That may not make sense, unless you realize that he has the demon of Defeat inside, and any time he loses, he suffers in extreme pain for days. And Paris has the demon of Promiscuity, so Strider has to be better than Paris, or he can’t be with Kaia. Little does he understand that he will be better just because Kaia loves him, not due to his skills.
But when they came together it made it all the sweeter (and hotter!) due to the wait. And I liked how they worked together as a team, even before they realized that they loved each other. The twist at the end with Kaia’s mom was unexpected. But I can’t wait for the Angels of Darkness spin-off series now, Zachaerel especially! Rawr!
There were two side-stories going on with William and Paris. Paris is still on the hunt for Sienna, and William finally took out his rage on Gilly’s parents. Both of those plots have me intrigued for their books, and I’m such a Showalter fan-girl now, it’s ridiculous. She has a way of pairing couples together who really don’t seem to fit well together, but they end up complimenting each other. Fantastic series, and a fantastic author.
Great review babes! I really enjoyed this book too. Loved the craziness that was Strider & Kaia!
Loved the review!