The Darkest Touch (Lords of the Underworld, #11)

by Gena Showalter

[Melanie]

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

This series is about a group of immortals who after having released demons from Pandora’s box, has been forced to house a demon inside themselves. Throughout the series we’ve seen how several of the lords have struggled with their demons. From the demon of Promiscuity who can’t have sex with the same person twice, demon of Defeat who suffers from severe pain anytime he loses even the smallest thing. The demon I always wanted to know more about was the demon of disease, Torin. If he touches a single human or immortal, he infects them with a fatal disease, while immortals may survive the disease, they are not a carrier and can start plagues themselves. Torin has forced himself to stay apart from everyone, even his closest friends.

We start this story pretty much where The Darkest Craving leaves off. Torin is being held in Cronus’s prison for immortals. He has been promised by the king of the Titans that he will be given a woman who can withstand his touch, but Torin quickly learns that this is not the case. It doesn’t take long into the story before Torin and our heroine, Keeley, aka The Red Queen, to escape from the prisons. The first part of the story is very slow as Keeley and Torin learn each other.

Keeley is also known as The Red Queen. She is the former fiance of Hades. She is also a new species to us called a Curator. She bonds to people and feeds from their lifeforce. I wouldn’t call it a succubus, but that is the closest that I can come to describing it. She is extremely powerful and this power does go to her head. She comes across as bratty and selfish. Part of this is due to her history, which is troubled at best. She has learned to not trust anyone but herself.

While I was not much of a fan of Torin and Keeley’s romance, which sucks because I’ve been waiting years for his story, there are parts of this story that I still enjoyed. We have a budding romance between Cameo and Lazarus (are they the next story?). We also have side stories about William, Baden, Pandora even Galen.

Overall, I did enjoy the story. I felt the story was a little drawn out and could’ve been shorter at the beginning. Once we get through the first third of the book, the story does pick up. I can’t wait to see where the series is going. I don’t know how many more stories are left in this series. As much as I’ve enjoyed it, all good things must come to an end and we are running out of lords and I think adding new ones at this point to keep the series going would be a disservice to the series.

Narration
I’ve listened to most of the books in this series, though I started out reading these books. This is the first one that I went straight to audio instead of listening as a reread. I’ve always felt that Max Bellmore was a good narrator for this series.
His deep voice is perfect for the warrior of the gods. His women’s voices aren’t horrible, but aren’t the best women’s voices I’ve ever heard. He is a big slow when he talks, so I listened at an increased speed.