Saturday, September 11, 2010

Series Review: Lords of the Underworld

The next review I'd like to write is on a favored series, The Lords of the Underworld series by Gena Showalter. Gena Showalter has quite a few series and stand alone novels, some of which I've read and some I haven't yet had the pleasure. I've enjoyed everything she's written, but the Lords are a personal favorite. (And there's no vampires!! *smiley face*). I'm sure her other series will make it to a review in this blog in the future (even the ones with vampires...).

Series Overview: There's a lot to like about this series and little to dislike. Although the actual dynamic of the series general plot is a very old, tried and true, how the details and old ideas are put together are original.

The series starts outside Budapest with a castle full of dark, brooding, muscle bound men who keep to themselves. One day a woman stumbles on to their grounds and one of these brooding males takes a shine to her and protects her, in his own gruff way, from the wrath of the rest of his brothers. So far, not so original. Quite a few paranormal romance series starts out as such, but this one was well written and intriguing so I continued to read (and they weren't vampires, which is always a plus).

Here's the interesting part. Gena Showalter has weaved together Greek mythology with more modern day religious icons to create the Lords. Whereas Zeus and the other gods are real in this world, so are Lucifer and a whole host of demons. The titans and a few angels are even thrown in there for good measure.

A very long time ago, a group of demons escaped from hell and ran rampant on earth. As a punishment, the Greek gods put together an inescapable box. The demons were rounded up and placed in the box. A race of men and women were created for the sole purpose of guarding this box. When Pandora was put in charge of the box's safekeeping, there were those who were jealous. Pandora was killed and the box was opened, releasing the evil on the earth again.

Once more the demons were rounded up, but instead of being placed back in the box, they were placed inside each of the warriors that had a hand in their release from Pandora's box. This was a punishment for both the demon and the warrior. Being immortals, they would suffer together forever, the demon once again contained and the warrior driven insane from the demon's torments.

So, of course, after a thousand years or so, each of them start to find females and falls head over heals for them. Funny how that always seems to happen at the same time in each and every series. And also, they are waging war with some big bad human contingent set on their extermination.

Here is a listing of the current books and a few future books (note there are also two short stories not listed below):

  • The Darkest Night - Maddox, the keeper of Violence
  • The Darkest Kiss - Lucien, the keeper of Death
  • The Darkest Pleasure - Reyes, the keeper of Pain
  • The Darkest Whisper - Sabin, the keeper of Doubt
  • The Darkest Passion - Aeron, the keeper of Wrath
  • The Darkest Lie - Gideon, the keeper of Lies
  • The Darkest Secret (May 2011) - Amun, keeper of Secrets
  • The Darkest Surrender (July 2011) - Strider, keeper of Defeat 

Conclusion: I'm a huge Gena Showalter fan. She hasn't disappointed yet. I love her writing style and have long wished to better my own skill so I can write in a similar style. This is one of the best series I've read and I highly recommend it to any paranormal romance fans out there. There's a little of everything, action, adventure, love, romance, betrayal, and everything else (except vampires! no vampires!). There's some hint at a crossover to her other series and even a mention of Kresley Cole's Immortals After Dark series. It's a world filled with life like characters that you immediately sympathize with and only want to see them happy, even if they are demons.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

I'm Not Really Gone


It's been a little while since I posted, but wanted to reassure everyone that I'm not really gone. I've been around, stewing on ideas, lurking on various writing websites. Never fear, I haven't given up or lost the writing bug. With a lot going on personally, I needed a break.

So, what's been going on you ask? Well, only because you asked, I did manage to finish three short stories (one suspense, one horror and one teaser to a paranormal romance series I've been thinking quite a lot about) and work out the rest of the plots of my urban fantasy novel and my paranormal romance novella.

I submitted one short story to a flash fiction contest. It was my very first submission and was very exciting to see the process. According to the publisher, there were 20 spots and 60 submissions. They were looking for fantasy and my story borderlined on romance. So, with all that in mind, I wasnt surprised that I got my first rejection letter.

Otherwise, I've only been toying with writing. That is, until the last couple days. I started a new project. It was meant for a particular purpose, but as most projects do, it took on a life of it's own. Now it is something very different, but very special and dear to me. It is a memoir of sorts and is so personal that I doubt I would ever share it or dare publish it. Perhaps after I am a successful writer and someone goes through my things once I've died. Or then, maybe not.