One Good Book Deserves Another

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: Dark Kings, Book 1
Rating: 3 Stars
Length: 384 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Series Parts: Darkest Flame: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
Note: Though I read this book in its series parts (1-4), I couldn't figure out a way to review those parts individually without making myself nuts, so this review is for the book as a whole.
Disclosure: An ARC of parts 1-3 of this book were provided to me by St. Martin's Press via Netgalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.





When MI5 agent Denae Lecroix was sent on a mission to infiltrate Draegan Industries, she knew something was off with the assignment. She just didn't know how off it was until her partner turned on her and tried to kill her after they'd pushed deep into Draegan's land. That betrayal cut almost as deeply as the knife wound she took before she...ended the partnership.

Waking up from a sleep that spanned over a thousand years to find two humans battling to the death in his cave, Dragon King Kellan was so surprised by their trespass that he was able to curb the instinct to kill the interlopers.

And he remembered his responsibility. Good thing for the surviving female that he did, too. No matter how much he loathed humans, a race full of murderous, wretched betrayers, his word was a bond, obligating him to take the surviving human female to the King of Kings before he could wash his hands of the race and sleep once more.

What Kellan learns when he takes Denae to his King changes everything. With old enemies allying with humans and the Dragon Kings being targeted in a way they have never been before, their fate could very well rest in the hands of one not-quite-dead MI5 spy and her willingness to embrace a world that she couldn't have ever dreamed existed alongside her own.


It was nice reading a spin-off series opener that truly didn't require me to have read the series from which it spun. Grant did a really nice job introducing the Dragon Kings and their world in such a way that gave a nod to what came before, but didn't depend on it too heavily. There were a few scenes that would probably have had more of an emotional impact on me if I'd been familiar with their backstory, but nothing that confused me or made me feel lost.

There were several elements of Denae and Kellan's story that I liked quite a lot, and a couple of characters (Rhi especially) who endeared themselves quickly and deeply. I also thought the world and backstory were well-conceived, the history of the dragons tragic but, odd as it may sound, believable, and the dynamic between Dragon Kings, humans, and Fae - both Light and Dark - was fascinating. It all meshed together well and provided a solid framework for the story's foundation.

Plus, dragon shifters. I'm a sucker for dragon shifters.

Those were all lovely pieces of the story puzzle, but I can't say I was completely won over by the way it all came together. There wasn't quite enough focus on a cohesive plot for me and too much of the story got hung up on Denae and Kellan's attraction to one another to the exclusion of other necessary story elements.

Instead of laying groundwork for the arc of the series, or offering a sophisticated evolution of characters and story, too much of the narrative was spent telling me again and again how smart, strong, independent, gorgeous, etc. Kellan found Denae (despite his hatred of humans) and how unimaginably sexy and fierce and amazing Denae found Kellan. Unfortunately, there wasn't a whole lot in the story that evidenced either of those things to me as a reader, so it came off as a repetitive Tell versus Show situation unsupported by the reality of the content.

There were a few opportunities for plot progression, and scenes that made me think the book was getting into the nitty-gritty, especially during battle scenes or moments of suspense and tension. Instead of broadening and expanding on those points of conflict, though, the scenes tended to start and end quickly and were very sparse in description or definition. And far, far too many elements were introduced as teasers that never got anything even approaching explanation, let alone resolution.

Rhi's former relationship with a Dragon King. Con's hatred of Ulrick. And Rhi. His questionable actions in the past and conflicted ones now. The Silvers. The identity of the Bad Guy. Why that Bad Guy wanted Kellan. The MI5/Dark Fae alliance. Tristan's transition into a Dark King. The impact of human mates on the dragons. The dissension in the Kings' ranks.

And that's just off the top of my head. There were more things, sources of conflict or questions raised, that added to the pile of things that remained completely unresolved or unanswered by the end. The only thread that was resolved, in fact, was the relationship between Denae and Kellan.

Unfortunately, as characters, I couldn't quite garner much more than ambivalence for either of them. Their story just didn't give me enough reason to do so. Denae was too inconsistent. She kept reminding Kellan that she could handle herself and was a well-trained spy, but I don't recall many instances after the initial fight with her partner where she acquitted herself well in that regard. In fact, she had to rely almost exclusively and more than once on Kellan's help just to survive with both mind and body intact.

Kellan, on the other hand, was perfectly consistent...a perfectly consistent jerk. Between his oft-mentioned hatred of the human race and his unmitigated sense of superiority, I found him hard to take in the first half of the book and only marginally more palatable in the second.

There was a scene where he completely dismisses Denae's grievous personal losses because, as a dragon, his are so much more significant - then he jumps her for some wild monkey sex. That pretty much slammed the door closed on any lingering feelings of sympathy I had for him, and it severely damaged my respect for Denae's strength of character, because though she called him on his insensitivity, she sure doesn't hold him off or demand an apology for his galling opinions. He's apparently just too awesomely male to resist, regardless of his crappy attitude.

Adding in my issue with the too-abrupt (for my tastes) relationship timeline, and the romance elements of the story didn't work so well for me.

There were definitely parts of this book that shined brightly, but they just weren't given enough room to really gain a toehold in the narrative. Those good parts were fresh, original, and eminently entertaining, but neither the romance between Denae and Kellan nor either character individually worked well enough for me to convince me to stick around to see if all those teasers eventually get explained or all the unresolved issues eventually get their resolution. At best, this was an okay read for me overall, but not one I wish to follow up on with future books.

Genre: M/M Urban Fantasy; LGBT
Series: N/A
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 360 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Riptide Publishing via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




Black knows all about the dark underbelly of life. He should. He lives it every night. He and his twin sister were little more than children when circumstances forced them to the streets. Now they're Nightwalkers, selling themselves to survive.

Not sex...or blood, for that matter. Their vampire johns - Lyche, they call themselves - don't drink blood, and sex has never been one of the services the siblings offer. Besides, vampires have other needs. What Black and his sister sell is their chi, their life energy.

Hey, it's a renewable resource, and vampires pay well for it. Not that the transaction is risk-free. Quite the contrary, especially as he and his sister don't just sell their chi. They steal vampire chi for themselves in the process.

Turns out, their johns don't appreciate that much, a fact that becomes painfully clear when Black taps the very last vampire he should have anything to do with, Monsieur Garthelle. Not only is Garthelle the top vampire in the city and the law of the land, but the chi tap Black did on the guy goes wrong in a way that no other has.

Now he's got two choices. Either he lets Garthelle turn him and his sister into his two pet spies during some swanky party thing the vampire is holding for his nearest and dearest not-exactly-friends, or Garthelle will end them both.

Which really isn't any choice at all, is it?


With a fresh and original twist on vampire mythos and a complex and intricate story, Etzweiler's Blacker than Black was a much more entertaining read than I was expecting based on the cover alone. No offense to the art designer, but wow - that cover does this book no favors at all. Fortunately, both the atmospheric world and Black's travails after biting off more of Garthelle's chi than he could handle made up for it nicely.

I loved the mystery and investigation surrounding the murdered Lyche, and the world that Black and his sister are surviving in has just enough of a touch of slightly futuristic dystopian nightmare to give it a seedy, humans-are-second-class-citizens-at-best flavor but not so much that it turned me off (I'm not normally a fan). It was a nice balance, and all the meatiest plot threads were woven together in a way that slowly revealed more and more pertinent details about the characters and the Lyche culture.

It wasn't love at first chapter for me, though. I have to admit, I had to work at it a bit in the beginning. Black is narrating his story in first person perspective. Nothing unusual about that; a good majority of urban fantasy fiction is the same. What was unique...and, for me, off-putting, was the present tense in the telling. It made the beginning of the book in particular feel a bit odd and jarring, and I was well into the story before I realized I was no longer getting jerked out of the read every few minutes by the style of the narration.

The fact that Black wasn't my favorite character didn't help matters, either. I didn't dislike him. He had several good points. I just didn't think he was all that strong as the lead character - especially in comparison to his sister, who I loved. Black tended to focus too much on the fallout of his tap of Garthelle's chi for my taste, shortchanging the story's potential for more comprehensive world building and additional plot depth.

And because the story is being told by Black, who is almost completely ignorant of Lyche culture and all the labyrinthian politics, obfuscated loyalties, and seemingly cross-purpose agendas, he didn't serve as a very good source of information about them as the story progressed. I was forced to learn what I could as Black did, around his obsession with fighting off the effect of Garthelle's chi. There just wasn't sufficient explanation for me to be able to fully immerse myself in the world, or be consistently solid on was going on in it.

I liked what there was, don't get me wrong, and some of it I liked a whole lot. There just wasn't quite enough of it for me.

Black's sister would have made a stronger protagonist, I think (though that would obviously have put the kibosh on the M/M leanings). She was brash, cagey, independent, and showed no fear, even when she felt it. And she loved the hell out of her brother, which softened her roughest edges nicely. I was saddened to see her so underutilized in the story, but every moment of page time she got improved whichever scene that included her.

Garthelle was the other character that really worked for me. I can't say I feel like I knew him all that well by the end, and I still don't completely buy his motives or the wisdom of the decision to bring Black and his sister into his situation, but I loved his inscrutable, stoic exterior, especially when it was so clearly covering up a much more vulnerable side of himself. His machinations were deliciously Machiavellian, but those moments when he let his guard down around Black were some of my favorites of the book.

It all set a nice foundation for the personal conflict between him and Black, but as most of Black's best efforts were made with the hopes of getting out from under Garthelle's influence, it threw a monkey wrench into the arc of the romantic relationship between them. I just never felt they were ever on equal footing - neither in Lyche culture nor in the relationship that slowly develops between them. That put a serious crimp on the romance-flavored aspects and made some stuff at the end of the book not quite as satisfying as I would have preferred.

If this was a first book in a series, I think most of my other issues with parts of the story - an abrupt ending, the odd relationship jump between Black and Garthelle, and the myriad questions that lingered after the final page - would have been largely mitigated. Plus, I'm greedy. When I'm impressed by the originality of a book's world or the freshness of the plot, I can only want more.

This book begs a sequel. Or a series. As a stand alone it was entertaining, if not always consistently so, and I liked it. If it was the start of something bigger, it may have been love by the end. For now, I can only hope to see more of Black and Garthelle...and Red and Blue, for that matter...at some point in the future.