One Good Book Deserves Another

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: Guardians of Eternity, Book 9
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 352 Pages
Formats: Mass Market Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Zebra Books publisher Kensington Publishing via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




He used to be the Bad Guy. The Big Bad of the piece. Hunted for bad acts, reviled for nefarious plans. Caine was the cur obsessed with becoming pureblood. Narcissistic, lacking conscience. Then one selfless act changed his destiny.

First, it killed him. Which, admittedly, was a bummer. Then he was reborn as a pureblood. Perk. But it also thrust Caine into an unfamiliar role: hero and protector of the most important being alive, the pureblood Were and prophet Cassandra.

Yeah, no pressure there. And that's not all. Caine is having the devil's own time keeping his hands off the beautiful, innocent Cassie. He's supposed to be her guard dog while they bounce all over the country at the whim of her prophecies, not panting after her like a sex-starved pup. That's somewhere he absolutely cannot go, no matter how his body torments him for his restraint.

His yearning is great but the stakes are high. They must focus on the race to stay one step ahead of the Dark Lord. If they fail, if the Dark Lord gets the last living prophet in his clutches, the future will be forever lost to them all.


This installment of Ivy's Guardians of Eternity series provides an example of why I tend to dislike when multiple books in a series have concurrent, non-sequential, or overlapping timelines. I can imagine it's a very tricky thing for an author to pull off successfully because I've read several series that haven't quite managed to do so. Including this one.

The first half of this book, the half that most heavily features the two main characters, Caine and Cassie, details the events leading up to and including how those two characters ended up where they were in the previous book. On one hand, that's a good thing, because honestly, I thought I'd just forgotten major plot points after such a long lag time between when I read the seventh and eighth book. On the other hand, once I realized that wasn't the case, the issue became that I was reading half an entire book knowing exactly how it was going to play out.

Not the details, maybe, but the end result. And that completely stripped any and all suspense or tension from that part of the story for me and made a couple of the elements seem a waste of time.

It did give me a chance to reacquaint myself with Caine and Cassie, which I appreciated. Still, there wasn't enough of what I was hoping this book would offer: a closer look into the nitty-gritty of a fascinating character like Caine. The psychological and physiological effects of the massive paradigm shift and major species upgrade that changed his life offers practically endless potential for character evolution and definition, but sadly I felt most of that potential went unrealized.

I like Caine. I've always liked Caine, even when he was on the less-than-straight-and-narrow, because I understood his motivations, even if I didn't approve of his methods. And remember, I hated Salvatore with a fiery passion (before Ivy made me like him, damn it all), so I was all for anyone opposing the character I thought was a hopeless, brutish thug. I just would have really loved seeing Caine's character go from Point A to Point B with a bit more of a scenic route.

Cassandra had the same sort of take-her-or-leave-her impact on me that she's had since her introduction into the series. I felt her character definition also had potential when she and Caine were in Vegas, but the story focus stayed more on their interpersonal relationship, limiting the page time needed to really dig into defining her as a young woman who's been sheltered from the world for her whole life. I never really felt I knew who she was in any substantive fashion.

Plus, I've mentioned before my preference for strong, independent heroines over damsels in distress, and Cassie was the quintessential damsel throughout almost all of this one.

Once the timeline progressed beyond the events of the previous book, this story picked up for me. I loved how the pieces of external conflict started to come together, building tension and becoming more and more intense. The Dark Lord and his minions stirring up all manner of hell, the efforts of the Vampires, Weres, and all their allies growing more and more desperate as they sustain blow after blow... All of that was great. I enjoyed what was there in the story completely.

My problem with the latter half of the book was not with what was there but rather what wasn't. Namely Caine, but to a lesser extent, Cassie too.

Once Caine and Cassie were in the mist dimension, a place we knew they had been taken as of the last book, Caine's circumstance removed him from almost the whole of the second half of the book and we only got glimpses of Cassie. Not only did that limit the impact of the characters in what is supposed to be their own story, but it completely crippled the romantic story elements for me. And the resolution of the romance story arc just wasn't enough to redeem that for me.

There is a lot going on in this book. Much of the plot-driven, external conflict is a culmination of several books in the series, and it's intense and well written and very respective of the groundwork that Ivy has carefully laid. In that regard, the book was completely successful for me. But it's supposed to be a paranormal romance, and this time there just wasn't enough romance for me to be able to fully enjoy the read.

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: Guardians of Eternity, Book 8
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 374 Pages
Formats: Mass Market Paperback, Kindle




He had kidnapped her. Unloaded her unconscious body in the decimated halls of his deposed master, the vicious Morgana le Fey. Once he had her secured beyond the mists in Avalon he chained her with silver - protecting her delectable skin, of course - and waited. She is Jaelyn, a vampire, one of their feared Hunters.

Ariyal chose not to look too closely at his reasons for taking her. That way lies madness. Instead, he's going to punish her for his interest and torment her a bit. After all, he blames her for his failure to stop the Dark Lord. It's only fair he exact a little retribution...before he tracks down his brother and continues the distasteful task he started.

He has to kill the child born to be the reincarnation of the Dark Lord or it will be the end of the world as all know it.

Regaining consciousness chained up in a strange place with a Sylvermyst bastard looming over her isn't exactly the highlight of Jaelyn's long life. Oh sure, the bare-chested bastard is gorgeous. Lovely eye candy. And if she wasn't a Hunter, immune to his fine-bodied charm, she might have been worried. Instead, all she wants to do is sink her fangs into the fiend and show him what a Hunter like her can really do.

And she means that in the most painful and deadly way. Really.

She's definitely not going to let Ariyal continue with his heinous plan. She'll find a way to stop him from killing that child. But when an Oracle pops up and suddenly changes the nature of the contract between her and the Consortium, she can't help but wonder what in the hell is in store for both her and the Sylvermyst.

Bringing him in is one thing, but sticking by his side - even helping him - given how he affects her, may be more dangerous to Jaelyn than anything else she's ever faced. And riskier than facing the Dark Lord himself.


Just before I started reading this installment of Ivy's popular Guardians of Eternity series, I checked to see when I'd read its predecessor. I was a little surprised it had been over a year and a half and a little concerned that I'd have a hard time slipping back into the series after so long.

Thankfully, that wasn't the case. Ivy did a decent job with the series exposition, weaving it in with the book's story arc in a way that reminded me of what went before even as the current plotline progressed. While I don't think this book would work well as a stand-alone, or as a starting point for interested readers unfamiliar with the series, it worked just fine for me.

As much as I read, there are surprisingly few series that hold my attention as long as this one has. The world that Ivy's created here may not be the most expansively detailed, nor are the plotlines all that complex, but each book offers a sexy, fun, action-packed read with wonderful dashes of snarky humor liberally sprinkled throughout. There is also a wealth of originality in the world and mythos, and that keeps the series from feeling like just another incarnation of the paranormal romance genre masters.

I liked Ariyal and Jaelyn as characters. Ariyal is a gorgeous, sexy alpha male who's had it very rough in the past. He bears the brunt of the responsibility for the future of his people and feels the pain of his brother's betrayal. Jaelyn is a gorgeous female warrior, cold and deadly because she's had to be, threatened by the fiery heat of her attraction to Ariyal because the cost of feeling for him is too high.

He's insouciant and sardonic, she's chilly and quick to bare her fangs or reach for her shotgun. It was fun seeing them evolve and grow closer despite themselves as they were forced to work together, and the chemistry between them was top-notch.

There was a nice balance in the shifting points of view in this book, too. As the threat of the Dark Lord continues to grow, important characters from earlier books, as well as a few new characters, have significant secondary character roles in this one. I'm a big fan of Styx, and Ivy made me a Salvatore convert with his book, and their increased presence served both the arc of the series and the storyline of this book quite well. And I appreciated very much that Ivy didn't shortchange the romance between Ariyal and Jaelyn while including them.

Then there's Levet. It just wouldn't be a Guardians of Eternity book without Levet. I love that little fairy-winged, French-spouting, magic-exploding gargoyle.

This series may fall closer to the brain candy end of the spectrum than the series I favor for their dark, detailed, complex worlds and angsty, deadly romances, but sometimes I just don't want to work that hard to enjoy a read. I trust Ivy to entertain me and raise my temperature. The male characters are sexy and powerful, the female characters are strong and independent, and the stories have been adding depth and dimension as the series has progressed. For all of that I'm still reading, still enjoying, and plan to continue to do so.

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: Guardians of Eternity, Book 7
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 352 Pages
Formats: Mass Market Paperback, Kindle


He's been trailing her, stalking her for days. He's a Charon, a rogue vampire hunter, and he's been tasked with finding the jinn halfbreed and bringing her before the Commission for elimination. Her kind is considered an abomination and against demon law. Somewhere in the middle of the hunt, however, her seductive scent has driven Tane to rethink a speedy capture and quick end to his duties. And when he runs her to ground and she whirls on him, he is both seductively attracted and infinitely intrigued by the spitting, feisty female. She's hiding something, is desperate to protect something, and Tane has every intention of satisfying both his hunger and his curiosity before he takes the gorgeous jinn anywhere.

Cornered and exhausted, Laylah comes out swinging against the delicious-looking vampire Tane. An outcast all her life and aware of the penalty of just existing, she's got nothing to lose and everything in the world to protect. With uncertain and volatile powers, she struggles to keep Tane at arms length and out of the hands of the Commission and she's willing to do anything, even bind Tane to her, to prevent him from sending her to her death. Keeping Tane from turning her over slowly starts to feel more like wanting to keep Tane with her as the truth behind her secrets uncover a plot to bring the Dark Lord back to earth...and release his untold evil on demon kind.

The seventh book of the Guardians of Eternity starts to point the series in a new direction and introduces intriguing new characters even as it picks up and resumes plot threads introduced in the previous two books. Ivy is doing a strong job of widening the scope and mythos of the series even as she maintains the well established strong points, and Devoured By Darkness continues the trend of adding depth to this quick-moving, fast-talking, and so sizzling paranormal romance series.

I've always felt the strength of this series lies with the incendiary chemistry between the male and female leads in each book, as well as the snappy, snarky dialogue and fast action, and I have a soft spot for stubborn, set-in-their-ways males meeting their mates in even more stubborn, fiercely independent, smart, and tough females. In that respect, Ivy hits all my happy spots. Toss in the diminutive gargoyle Levet, a force unto himself, and I enjoy the heck out of this series.

That being said, I had some problems with Devoured By Darkness. The story picks up right where the ancillary plot thread of Tane's hunt for the jinn left off in Beyond the Darkness, but instead of immersing me right back into the action, I had a hard time getting into sync with the characters and felt a step behind for the first few chapters. I would have preferred a bit more exposition and a different introduction to Laylah in particular. I had enjoyed Tane's intensity and power when we met him briefly in Darkness Unleashed so I was prepared to enjoy his character - and I did - but I wish his introduction to Laylah had started out a little differently.

I also liked the plot of the book, but thought the pacing dragged a bit through the middle - a first for me in this series. Laylah and Tane bounced around a lot as they raced for answers and tried to stay alive, but instead of instilling me with a sense of urgency about the building danger, it almost felt more like a distraction to the primary conflict than a part of the journey to it. The scenes with the villainous vamp and her maniacal mage were creepy, but lacked definition and development. Transitions from scenes between Tane and Laylah and the evil duo were abrupt and seemed random and occasionally disjointed instead of flowing together into a cohesive, steadily building crisis point.  The brief scenes with Caleb and Cassandra were also sparsely developed with a dearth of exposition and seemed to drop down into the story at odd intervals. There were also a couple of plot threads that weren't resolved by the end of the book, like the issue with Laylah's mother, but I'm holding out hope that that particular issue will be addressed in a subsequent novel.

On the positive side, Tane and Laylah were a good couple with strong chemistry. I wasn't sure of Laylah at first, but by the end, I was fond of her. Tane, on the other hand, I liked from the beginning (there may have been drool). Some of the brightest spots for me featured the hunter Jaelyn and the Sylvermist Ariyal and the subtle but intriguing teasers for their story in the next book. I always love Levet, and anytime I get to see the Anasso Styx I'm a happy reader. In fact, Ivy's habit of renewing our acquaintances with past lead characters has always been a point of pleasure for me. I really enjoy seeing glimpses of the continued lives of the previous HEA couples. I have to say, though, after just a few scenes with Jaelyn and Ariyal, I'm most looking forward to Bound by Darkness, the next installment in the Guardians of Eternity series.

Devoured By Darkness wasn't my favorite book in the series, and it had a few flaws that some of the other books didn't have, but it's a transitional book that introduces the series to a new arc with a lot of potential and new characters that have a lot of promise...and already have a heck of a lot of heat. It's exceptionally nice to read a series that still has a sense of freshness and a firm direction seven books in. It bodes well for the series as a whole.

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: Guardians of Eternity, Book 6
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Formats: Mass Market Paperback, Kindle


I admit, I believe the Guardians of Eternity series hasn't quite reached the level of exceptional paranormal romance (yet). I think it's a very solid and satisfying paranormal romance series - with a slight issue here and there. There doesn't seem to be a lot that differentiates and individualizes the lead romantic pairing in each book in either character development or the formula of the evolving romance, and I believe that is what separates the solid and satisfying from the exceptional. I've long been a huge fan of paranormal romance novels and series, though, so I have a pretty high tolerance for that lack of differentiation and individualization. It's a common malady in the paranormal romance series sub-genre. That being said, there are some series, like Christine Feehan's Carpathians, that I stopped reading a long time ago because the formula got to be too much, the characters too interchangeable, the women too often somehow lesser than their mates. I'm taking a break (and have been since Acheron) from Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter series for similar reasons.

I'm still reading Alexandra Ivy's Guardians of Eternity series. Why? Because it's still giving me exactly what I like in my paranormal romance novels. An uber-alpha male and a strong, independent female that lock heads, fangs, fists and wits, humor, and charm to create an explosive chemistry that works for me quite nicely. There's also the characters from previous novels that get tossed into the mix, and I love seeing the continuing development there.

In Beyond the Darkness, in particular, Ivy has gone one step further, and seems to have added another dimension to the series arc, hinting at something coming that may draw together all the characters we've met so far and pit them against one decidedly evil threat to all demonkind. It was a tantalizing and tricky thing to do, because it provided the series a cohesion and depth previously unattained. Not to mention, this particular book is the first of the series to provide a male pureblood werewolf as top dog (so to speak) instead of another of the leeches (as Salvatore would call them), so we got to get a much better - though still too brief for me - view of the difference between the vampire culture and the declining werewolf culture. The differences were handled nicely, even if I wish I'd seen a few more of them to make them really stand out. When combined with my appreciation for the series and the characters to date, it raised my enjoyment of this book and the series even higher.

Not to mention that Alexandra Ivy has managed to take a character I have disliked since he was introduced, Salvatore Giuliani, and made me not only like him (a little), but understand him better and appreciate his responsibilities and the demands of saving a race from extinction. That stunned me, because I said in my review of Darkness Unleashed I was not looking forward to a book about Giuliani. Up until this point I've found him arrogant, manipulative, and at turns boorish and sadistic in how he treated his curs and females. There was a lot of ground to cover to get me to like him, and while he still isn't my favorite character, I admit, I did warm to him. I had no such trouble with Harley. I found her just as competent, intelligent, and strong as all of Ivy's female leads (except maybe Abby). I enjoyed very much her calling Giuliani to task again and again for his arrogance and I appreciated her willful resistance to bowing to the alpha's power. I thought the plot supporting her backstory was well defined and explained everything about her character. In fact, I think this is the first book in the series in which I completely bought into exactly why the male and female lead are exactly the way they are and was very impressed by how deftly the author blended the pair without diminishing either individual.

Salvatore has been searching for the four genetically altered pureblood cubs for thirty years, and has finally stumbled across the third (after the first fell in love and mated to the vampire Anasso, Styx, and the second proved to be barren...though she also fell under the spell of the leech Jagr, and Salvatore had no chance there). Imagine his surprise when he realizes that the third of the female cubs, the delicate in appearance but anything but delicate in reality Harley, is not only within his grasp, but is also his true mate - a bond he thought lost to the mysteries of the past for his species, as it had been a hundred years or more since the last pureblood true mating. Harley has been living cloistered from the werewolves, kept hidden by Caine, the upstart cur who's been using Harley's blood to try to find his personal holy grail - turning curs into purebloods and being the messiah of the species. She's been lied to her entire life - about the death of her sisters at the claws of the Were King himself, in particular, so meeting up with him on a moonlit night sends terror through her heart and violence through her soul. Neither know, nor soon realize, that each are a pawn in a far deadlier game, and ancient evil and a long dead nemesis rise against them both. If they fall, they lose more than their lives, they lose the entirety of the battered and beleaguered were species.

Excellent novel, and a fun, fast read. It didn't have quite the same amount of humor that some of the others in the series do, and I truly missed the sardonic acceptance that each of the vampires showed when they realized their mates weren't going to make life easy on them. Salvatore was less humorous, more intense that way - but in his defense, he had some truly charming and adorable moments towards the end that I won't go into further to prevent spoilers. They were endearing, though. Beyond the Darkness is also the first in the series that has set me on the edge of my seat for the next - and it's exactly because of the added dimension I mentioned as well as the plot thread with Caine. Dastardly Ivy keeps making her books better and better. I very much enjoyed it.

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: Guardians of Eternity, Book 5
Rating: 4 Stars
Format: Paperback, Kindle