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Saturday 25 June 2011

Review: THE DARKNESS BEYOND

The Darkness Beyond by Alexis Morgan
Book 8 of The Paladins series

Genre: adult urban fantasy

About The Darkness Beyond:
An online game of cat and mouse leads a Paladin warrior on a deadly rescue mission to claim the irresistible lover who should be his greatest enemy.

D. J. Clayborne has finally met his match. After weeks of playing cyber tag, a mysterious hacker bests D.J. at his own game. His nemesis downloads a top-secret history of the Paladins, forcing him to go on the hunt. The trail leads D.J. straight to Regina Morrison, a woman who is as sexy as she is talented in the cyber world.

Reggie has been working around the clock to stop a legendary computer hacker from accessing her clients' files. She just hasn't told her boss she found the intriguing culprit weeks ago. The last thing she expects to have D.J. show up on her doorstep and that he's even sexier than his evasive avatar. Now they're flirting with a dangerous line between duty and desire.

Reggie's deep investigation gets her kidnapped by the Others and forced across the hostile energy barrier into an alien world. Now it's up to D.J. to track down the captivating woman whose ability to break through his firewalls is also breaking through to his warrior's heart.
Source: Info in the About The Darkness Beyond was taken from the author's website at http://www.alexismorgan.com/darknessbeyond.html on 16/06/2011.

Review:
When I started reading this book, it came back to me again, the question I had when I first started reading this series: Why can't they just plug the "barrier" with mortar and concrete? Or a boatload of TNT! Looked effective enough when Kolar blew up that "barrier" section at the lava caves... But then again if they do that, we won't need Paladins to defend our world and then we won't have a story!! That is one logic flaw in the world building which I chose to ignore while reading this series. However, it is starting to nag me now. I like it better if the world building does not have gaping flaws staring right back at me like that. And another thing, it is also starting to read like same old, same old. I love the world of the Paladins, mind, just wish that this book didn't have the feel of "same old, same old" kinda thing. And I sure do like the man-candy on the cover!! The story telling is the same masterpiece quality so the story flowed well and the book read realtively fast. Despite this being Book 8 in the series, there is enough info there so that a reader who is new to the series can keep up and understand the story, fine. So I think this book can be read on it's own, though I do not suggest it because it mentions characters and events from previous books which will spoil the previous books for a reader if planning to read them after this book. Which you will want to read because this author has such a compelling author's voice. The ending is another HEA and am happy. Overall, I enjoyed this book and would give it a 4 out of 5.

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 4.5
Character development = 4.5
Story itself = 3
Ending = 4
Cover art = 4
Pace = 4

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 cherries


Books In The Series:


Thank you to Simon & Schuster for the review copy received.

2 comments:

Blodeuedd said...

Lol, I adore the smilies in this one :D It tells it just like it is

Melissa (My World...in words and pages) said...

lol. I have to say I've read a few books where I didn't know why they just didn't do something like you mentioned here. But as you said, we wouldn't have a story then. :) Great review. And the cover art is scruptuous. ;) Thank you!

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