The Darkest Torment (Lords of the Underworld, #12)

by Gena Showalter

Baden, having spent centuries in purgatory, is now bound to the king of the underworld and quickly devolving into a heartless assassin. When his mission goes awry, he finds himself saddled with dog trainer Katarina Joelle, someone else's bride, as his hostage. Katarina is plunged into a war between two evils, with a dangerous protector--but is he more dangerous to the monsters he hunts, or to her heart?

• ISBN10: 0373803737
• ISBN13: 9780373803736
• Publish Date: 22 November 2016 (first published 31 May 2016)
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Imprint: Hqn
• Format: Paperback (US Mass Market)
• Pages: 576
• Language: English

Reviews

[booksandcats]

Alright, where to start... Well, first I've got to say I wasn't too thrilled that this one was Baden's book, because I think he came back like five minutes ago... Maybe give him some time as a secondary Character, so we get to know him and find out a bit more about his backstory and can grow more fond of him. But whatever, I started this series so I'm going to finish it. I'm not too obsessed with this anymore, 'cause I didn't like a few choices Gena Showalter did in some previous books (and future ones lol), but I still want to finish it. Reasons why I'm not too keen on this series is because I feel Showalter is using the same template for all her male and female MC's. The male is always strong, tortured, brooding while the female is (or evolves into) a feisty, loud-mouthed, immature harpy (not literally), who seems to be stuck at the age of 13. At least her immortal Characters. Her human characters tend to have more fleshed out characters, more aspects to their personalities. So, I had hopes for Katarina.

And to be fair, she wasn't terrible. She wasn't the typical Gena-Showalter-heroine. But she was sooo preachy, and, I'm sorry, but she intended to train Baden like one of her stray dogs? Huh?? That's just... weird and quite condescending. Don't get me wrong, the first thing I thought when I read this about this pairing was that her background could come in handy in dealing with someone troubled like Baden (or any of the Lords to be honest). But... don't plan it out and literally call it "training him" in your mind and call him a "good boy"... that's really really... weird.

Baden was pretty much the typical hero of Showalter. I have to be honest, for the last few books the male MC was interchangeable. Pretty much the same again and again. Unfortunately even the earlier characters, who had differences in their Personalities seem to be the same now. Take a scene out of this book where one of the Lords appear as a secondary Character. Switch his name with a random other Lord. See if it fits. (Spoiler alert: it does). The exchanges with his new inner companion were the most interesting part about Baden. The remainder of the time he was all like: "I'm so much stronger than Katarina. I am soo sad and tortured and I don't deserve my friends because I decided to die a few centuries ago. You are weak and you need my protection. Noooo don't leave me I'll die without you".

For them together... well it was Gena Showalters usual instant lust and then that lust turns out to be love... Same old same old. Still enjoyable enough I guess, hence the three stars, despite my numerous complaints.

Oh, now for the plot. The whole emotional problem Baden and Katarina had. For real? I mean... yeah he sucked a bit with his attitude... first in believing her weak (and telling her that), than in having trouble trusting her (well, he had been possessed by Distrust, so... figures?), and in being overbearing... I mean, I'm not saying he is a prize and his behavior is amazing. But, let's be fair here. He was possessed, then he died and he spent centuries dead in a realm, forced to watch the life around him, his friends and family, not able to touch anything or anyone, only able to interact with one person, and they hated each other. Then he comes back into a world that isn't his, his friends are all happy in their lifes and, instead of being given a chance to relax, to adjust, he is drawn into an immortal war, burdened with a new dark being inside of him and has to kill the one person that kept him sane. I'm just saying, I would think a person who has to deal with innocent, love-needing creatures everyday (like a dog-trainer for example) would recognize his inner turmoil and, while not let him stomp all over her, cut him some slack and give him some time to adjust. But nooo, we need some emotional conflict, and suffering for the MC's, so Katarina decides to leave him... leave him for good, actually making a clearer cut than maybe any heroin of the author before her (except Keely maybe), because... he said he would make her immortal. Not saying he was right in not listening to what she wanted. But he didn't even do anything yet. Yeah. well done. Much patience for a dog-trainer.

Ok. Now the story. I kind of enjoyed the general direction of it, the infos we got about Hades, Lucifer and everything. But, it was just a bit lacking all in all. It built up much more than it delivered. The whole Aleks mess that was strung out for the whole book and then resolved in the matters of minutes (after he has gotten stronger than ever before). The whole thing about the wreaths and their danger and the high stakes and it was all resolved by... what exactly? Baden wishing very hard? Come on... Their whole conflict was with Hades, and he was pretty much established as "not the bad guy" in the last book. So, yeah, not that high stakes

Then the whole William, Gilly and Puck sub-plot. Alright. Let me start by saying, I've not been to keen on the Gilliam thing. She seemed to young and immature, they had a kind of father-daughter relationship in my mind (which is why I always hated their mutual lusting after each other) and he has slept with hundreds of woman since meeting her. Which I hate. I can't stand it when a guy meets a woman, falls for her in any way (be it lust, love or anything else) and go on having fun with someone else. Other way around the same. But. Gena Showalter has been hinting at this pairing since several books ago. Not only hinting, she practically made big huge red signs pointing at it, lighting them up and pointing a spot light at them. And now it's not happening? That's just not good writing. It doesn't follow how she built the Characters up, not at all. I'll refrain from judging the paring of Gillian and Puck here, as I don't know enough to figure out if I would enjoy them.

Cameos parts were the most entertaining for me and I'm very much looking forward to finding out the story of the only female Lord (Lady?) of the Underworld.

Writing stile wise, for me it's pretty consistent with the earlier ones, which isn't amazing to begin with. But it really doesn't bother me, because I'm not expecting high literature, I'm expecting to be entertained.

So, if you've read the other books of this series, give it a try, maybe you'll like it, I didn't particularly, but I didn't hate it. If you aren't familiar with this series, well you can give it a try... maybe it's more entertaining when you read about the Characters for the first time. Sorry for the long rant, btw, obviously had a looot of thoughts on this book.

[neddieb]

Not as good as the rest in the series

Is Gena loosing her touch? I totally skimmed through this book. Was not even interested in Katarina. Most exciting parts of the book was about everyone else in it except Baden and Katarina. My least favorite couple.

[Melanie]

My review and an extended sample of the audiobook are posted at Hotlistens.com.

Lords of the Underworld is a series that I’ve a bit of a love/hate relationship with. Okay, hate is a strong word. I won’t say that I have ever hated one of the books, but I’m very up and down with them. I feel like I never know if I’m going to like the book before diving into it. Most of the time, I really like the female and really dislike the males. That is pretty much the case here.

Baden, the original keeper of Distrust, is a character that we don’t know a lot of about. He “died” before the first book. He lost his demon and lived in Purgatory for a very long time. He is now working for Hades, along with Pandora. He has also working on building back his relationship with the other lords.

Hades sends Baden off to collect a golden coin from a human. He stumbles into a wedding. He takes the bride as a hostage. At first, he treats Katarina Joelle pretty crappy. He is sure that she was marrying this horrible human for his money. LIttle does he realize, she was marrying because of blackmail. She was trying to protect her poor, adopted pit bulls. They’ve known nothing but pain and misery before she got them. She wanted prevent them ever knowing that kind of misery ever again, even if she had to be misery to protect them.

Rina is a famous dog trainer. She takes in dogs that appear to be “broken” and turns them into great security dogs. Her dogs are her life. When this guy comes to her about buying some of her dogs, she can tell right off the bat that he is not a nice guy and won’t treat her dogs the way they should be treated so, she refuses to sell to him. That is when he starts his plan to take over her life. Which ends in the wedding that I mentioned and Rina is kidnapped by Baden.

Baden and Rina don’t start off well. He is very alpha male. She doesn’t want to take crap from him. She even starts to use her dog training techniques on him.

Surviving a feral, rule one: Never show fear. Basically, fake it till you make it.
Two: Use a soft but assertive tone. Anything else could rouse hostility.
Three: Remember you get what you reinforce, not necessarily what you expect.
In this case, she ignored rule number four: Place the dog’s needs first. And skipped to number five: Find out what will work best with each individual dog.
She also ends up with some new dogs that some of the other women of the series brought to her. She names them Biscuit and Gravy. This annoyed me. Who names dogs that? I’m sure some found it cute, but I didn’t. I just found it absurd. It annoyed me every time their name came up.

While I wasn’t a huge fan of the romance in this book, we do continue to learn more about universe and the characters involved. I know that many were very upset at the hero choice for this book. I know that many wanted to see William or Cameo or even Lazarus. I did think it was interesting to learn more about Baden.

Here is the real issue for me, i think. When a character “dies”, I expect them to stay dead. I’m not a fan of how we spent the first several books thinking he was dead and now he is not. I know he didn’t come back in this book, but in a previous one, but it still annoys me.

Narration
Max Belmore does a great job with the narration of this series. I’ve listened to most of the books in this series. I think he does a great job with that extremely alpha male that exists in the Lords of the Underworld. I don’t think he does a bad job at female voices. He isn’t one of my favorites at females, but I think he does a decent job of it. I do have to listen to him on an increased speed, but that is pretty normal for me.

**I like to thank the publisher for providing me with a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.