Alexiel’s Heaven

Weeell… what can I say… From an intellectual point of view I’m horrified by romance novels. I would never have imagined that I might like a book whose cover is decorated with the typical picture of a man and woman, both with long hair, him dressed in historically incorrect bloomers and her in a torn dress, in the background waves or a storm or a fire or preferably all three. So I’m quite glad that Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark-Hunter books don’t show such couples but instead only good-looking men. Whew! I would never have been able to live with my conscience otherwise. =)

My Dark-Hunter journey started with “Dark Side of the Moon”, with werepanther Ravyn and cat-allergic Susan. I saw it in a bookstore in Nuremberg, read the back-cover description and had laughed two times just reading that. So I bought it despite my reservations.

And I loved it. The story was actually quite complex (yes, really, that was not ironic) with a huge amount of background information and a world populated with an intriguing cast of characters, obviously even more than was mentioned in this one book. The kind of humor is just my thing – when I read how Susan’s grandmother would wear her clothes inside out to protect the colors from the sun, I was instantly reminded of my own grandma. She sometimes made us laugh a lot, e.g. when she told us that she did not want to throw away her old books but felt a need to distribute them as she could not read them anymore. Instead of selling them or giving them to us, every time she went shopping in the city she would take one or two books and put them in the display tables outside the book shops…! =)

Anyway. “Dark Side of the Moon” was my first Dark-Hunter novel, and only a few weeks later I had read through all the other volumes. “Dark Side of the Moon” still is my favourite, followed by “Night Embrace” (Talon and Sunshine – almost as funny), “Night Pleasures” and “Fantasy Lover”, or to put it differently, Kyrian and Julian. My favourite character, however, is definitely Asheron – just sooo yummy =) and mysterious. I am very much lookin forward to the next volume dedicated to him alone.

I also like the mixture of different historic legends and gods, as it is something new and well researched (according to Wikipedia, Kenyon has a degree in historic studies). Every now and then, the characters even speak in Latin or Classical Greek… =) There’s only one small part not that well researched: in one book, unfortunately I don’t remember which one, the female protagonist intervenes in a fight and kicks a bad guy so expertly that he is immobilized. When the male lead gives her a questioning look, she simply says “Black belt in Aikido!” – … well. Not likely;-)

A nice marketing trick is used in each of the books: the author often writes about the website www.dark-hunter.com (“Doesn’t work? Try it with a hyphen!”) where the characters are looking for information etc. This site actually does exist, and I can’t imagine a better way to make the address known!

Conclusion: a great read for those (women) looking for yummy heroes and good Fantasy books.

Searching in the Aikiweb forum for book recommendations, I had found a reference to “Watchtower” by Elizabeth A. Lynn. The German barter/swap portal “Tauschticket.de” happened to have an offer of the novel, and although it had mediocre reviews on amazon.de, I was curious and ordered it.

I am sad to say I did not like it much. The story is ok, nothing special but not bad also – a castle is conquered, the lord killed, the young prince captured. With the help of a friend / liegeman he is able to flee, finds new hope and help far away from home and returns to take revenge and reclaim his castle.

Usually not a story that would make me buy a book, but – the help from far way is the leader of a society practicing Aikido (or something very much like it). The part of the book taking place in this Aikido society was also the best part, in my opinion, except for the fact that one of the characters learns how to fall in just one day, that’s so unfair.

The biggest weakness, for me, were the characters. Thoughts or feelings – sorry, none of that. I think the author wanted to let the characters’ actions speak for them, but there are simply not enough of them, and thus I did not really notice any feelings of the characters throughout the whole book.

The simple sentence structure sometimes was a little annoying as well. Quote: “She bent his arm back. His hand opened. The knife rolled from his fingers. She picked it up.” Sure, quotes always sounds worse when taken out of context – but that was FIGHT scene! Maybe there was once more the intention of emphasizing the actions, and not disctracting the reader with complicated sentences?

Conclusion: A good sound book which just was not to my personal taste. But, of course, don’t rely on my opinion, if you’re interested, try it for yourself and read it! =)
(After all my favourite books are criticized by other people as well. You never know…)