REVIEW
Fans of all
things paranormal will love this series, and this book was a great finale. I enjoyed
seeing these much loved characters come together in a fight to set things right
and to finally find peace within their race. I also loved seeing new
friendships and relationships formed, as well as the forgiveness of past sins.
And that was
pretty much what this book was all about – forgiveness, redemption and
acceptance.
Viéve was my
favorite character in this story. Her compassion and innocence touched me, and
I was really glad that she was there for Kamen, because she was unbiased and
didn’t judge him for his past discretions. Not that I blame the others for
feeling the way they did.
For everything I
loved about this book, I did have a few things that niggled at me. I found some
of the dialogue at times to be a little too long-winded and at other times it
was stilted. I also found that Kamen and Viéve’s love-making scenes were added
as more of a filler, and while they were passionate, the book would have moved
along well with the exclusion of at least one of them. Another thing that stood
out to me was the flow of POV from one character to another. While done
seamlessly, which I applaud the author for, I would have preferred the POV to
remain with a single character throughout a chapter or passage, rather than switch
at any given time.
All in all, this
was an enthralling read.
EXCERPT
He
had been blind, he thought as he pulled on a pair of slacks. He had discovered
that she just wanted power for herself at any cost. Kamen was a very smart man,
but he had been very stupid when it came to Odjit. He had spent far too much
time engrossed in his books and spells and not enough time living in the real
world and seeing truths for what they were.
Kamen
pulled on a collared shirt but did not button it. He knew he was likely to be
the only one up at this time of the day so he didn’t bother. He looked out of
the windows, their polarized glass keeping all hint of sunlight from touching
anyone in the house. Bodywalkers were paralyzed by the touch of the sun. All
Nightwalkers, in fact, had a weakness to sunlight. Djynns blistered and burned
unless they turned to their smoke form, Night Angel skin turned from ebony to
albino and their natural abilities became muffled. From what he had read,
Mysticals were forced to be in their mystical form rather than their human
form. Phoenixes burst into flame at the touch of the sun, leaving only ash from
which they would be reborn once darkness fell, and one touch of the sun made
Wraiths—who spent the darkness in their ghostly forms that could phase right
through solid objects—instantly solid, which was deadly if they happened to be
phasing through something at the time.
He
had found out about all of these weaknesses during his hours of study. What he
did not know was what the weaknesses of the other six Nightwalkers were, the
new Nightwalkers they had only just discovered: Demons, Lycanthropes, Mistrals,
Vampires, Druids, and Shadowdwellers. He wanted to learn about them, but so
far, it had proven next to impossible. Nothing in their written languages made
sense to him, and, in fact, without a human translator, there wasn’t even any
way of speaking with them. It was as if they weren’t there at all. Besides,
Kamen didn’t think they would be all that willing to share information about
their weaknesses in any event, never mind sharing it with the likes of him.
Still,
Kamen had spent hours in conversation with the Druid called Bella, whose talent
was the ability to read any language put before her. Any language, that is,
written by humans or the six Nightwalker races she knew of. The Bodywalkers
wrote in Egyptian or the language they were reborn into, plus any languages
they had studied over their incarnations. Kamen himself could read and write
and speak almost any language put in front of him. The product of having his
nose constantly in a book whenever he had a body.
But
while this Bella could read Egyptian, she could not read anything that referred
to any of the six races she was not familiar with. Instead, the pages would
simply be filled with the Egyptian alphabet. Something that might seem strange,
but not strange enough to have gotten her to question it earlier. And when
books in the Demon language were brought to Kamen, all he could see was
gibberish that meant absolutely nothing and was completely indecipherable. If
Bella wrote something in English about the other Nightwalkers, it just looked
like pages filled with the English alphabet.
It
was clear that whatever was keeping the two factions apart was determined to do
it in such a way that they would never have questioned it. And yet, for all of
this misdirection and codification, somehow a prophecy in the Demon language
about the twelve Nightwalker nations had survived, giving a hint of what was
out there. It had been useless with no context, until Bella, a half-breed
Druid, had literally run into Kat, a half-breed Djynn. While they could not see
each other nor speak to each other, they could write to each other and use
humans as go-betweens when getting messages across.
It
made for slow going, this communication process. It had been seven months now
since they had first found each other and they were still trying to smooth out
ways of communicating and transferring messages back and forth.
He
had been working with Bella since he had a larger store of language capability
than anyone else in the Portales, New Mexico, compound. If a solution was going
to be found, it was going to be found by the two of them. They just had to hope
it would happen sooner rather than later. Time was growing short.
For
Apep was about to give birth.
In
this incarnation, the imp god had taken over Odjit’s body. He had then chosen a
father from among the Nightwalker breeds, a powerful Night Angel named Dax, and
had raped him in order to impregnate himself. Apep was due to deliver the child
into the world any day now.
One
god was nearly impossible to fight, but two? And while there was still hope
they might stumble upon a text somewhere that would tell them how to get rid of
Apep, the god’s child would be something never seen before. There would be no
telling how to be rid of it.
Apep
had been quiet for the duration of his pregnancy, but after he gave birth, he
would focus on destroying them—Kamen was certain of it. He suspected that the
Nightwalkers were key to Apep’s undoing, and that the god knew it. So he would
destroy them as soon as he was able. Kamen believed that Apep’s pregnancy made
him vulnerable, and while they should probably strike before that weakness was
gone from him, there were two problems. They didn’t know how to attack him and
they no longer knew where he was.
Actually
. . . Kamen was fairly certain he had a spell that could locate him, only he
hadn’t mentioned it to the others as yet. He felt in his gut that they weren’t
ready to face Apep, that they were missing a key element that would allow them
to defeat him at last. Bella agreed with him. And anyway, the surest way to
defeat him would be if the two Nightwalker factions could coordinate their
attacks, and until they figured out why they couldn’t see each other, they
wouldn’t be able to enact that kind of coordination effectively.
It
was a curse. It had to be a curse.
Jill Sorenson is the RITA-nominated author of
more than a dozen romantic-suspense novels. She has a degree in literature and
writing from California State University. Her books have been selected as
Red-Hot Reads by Cosmopolitan magazine, and have received starred reviews from
Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Library Journal. Sorenson currently lives in
the San Diego area with her family. She’s a soccer mom who loves nature,
coffee, reading, Twitter, and reality TV.
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