Review – ‘The Darkest Passion’ by Gena Showalter

Blurb 

For weeks, the immortal warrior Aeron has sensed an invisible female presence. An angel-demon-assassin has been sent to kill him. Or has she? Olivia claims she fell from the heavens, giving up immortality because she couldn't bear to harm him. But trusting - and falling for - Olivia will endanger them all. So how has this mortal with the huge blue eyes already unleashed Aeron's darkest passion?

With an enemy hot on his trail and his faithful demon companion determined to remove Olivia from his life, Aeron is trapped between duty and consuming desire. Worse still, a new executioner has been sent to do the job Olivia wouldn't...

Review 

I remembered liking this book but, now that I’ve read it a second time, I’m not so crazy about it.

Aeron, keeper of Wrath, is finally free from his bloodlust that drove him to try and kill Danika and her family in the previous books. He feels guilty over the choice Paris made which saved him and he’s trying to help his friend grieve and stay healthy. Aeron’s happy with Legion, a demon minion he thinks of as his daughter, but he never expected to find himself eye-to-eye with an angel. Olivia was sent by the heavens to kill Aeron, but she couldn’t do it and chose to ‘fall’ instead of taking his life. Now a human with some angel gifts, she has two weeks to spend with Aeron before another angel is chosen to kill him.

My main problem with this story is that Aeron constantly chose Legion, his manipulative adoptive daughter who’s lusting after him, over Olivia who gave up almost everything to save Aeron and to just spend some time with him. Legion can’t stand Olivia, but Olivia is tolerant of Legion. Aeron is described as selfless, loving and giving, and he is to everyone but Olivia. Aeron wants Olivia and seduces her without going all the way more than once. He wants to make Legion happy more than he does Olivia so he purposely hurts Olivia. I don’t understand why Olivia stayed with him so long. She didn’t often act like an angel since she wanted to have ‘fun’ all the time. In some ways she was a strong character but she’s weak when it comes to love and obsession. Aeron finally realizes about ¾ of the way into the book that Olivia is more important to him than anyone else is. He finally chooses her, but it doesn’t work out as he planned.

As always, the scenes with the side characters are my favorite. We meet Scarlet, keeper of Nightmares, and learn she has a connection with Gideon, the keeper of Lies. Super interesting! We finally see William and Gilly interact, but it’s totally clean since she’s so young. Legion makes a deal with Lucifer, and the results aren’t pretty. We meet Baden towards the end, and learn there’s a way to free him from the afterlife.

Again, as always, the author writes in passive voice with lots of fragment sentences. The middle section dragged with repetition and too much sex that never amounted to anything. Still, I’m drawn to the characters so I keep reading the series (I’ve already bought most of the books but I did so when they were on a big sale).

3 Stars

Disclaimer – I bought this book for my own enjoyment. I am not paid or compensated in any way, shape or form for this honest review. I will not change or alter this review for any reason unless at my discretion.