She is Keeley Cael. The Red Queen. When the powerful beauty with shocking vulnerabilities escapes from a centuries-long imprisonment, the desire that simmers between her and Torin is scorching. His touch could mean the end for her, but resisting her is the hardest battle he’s ever fought—and the only battle he fears he can’t win.
Comment: I'm behind on some series and this was one of them. The next book will be released this year and I still had the previous one to be read since december 2014. Somehow it just got left behind. While organizing some titles to read this year, I've assembled three or four titles belonging to series I need to catch up to. Next TBR theme will be spot on for me!
Anyway, this month I went for Gena Showalter's Lords of the Underwold latest installment, The Darkest Touch, Torin's story.
Torin is the LOTU who bears disease, a tricky demon to own because of how limitative his relationships can be, even with friends. Following previous happenings, Torin's book starts with him in a cell just realizing a sweet human woman has died because she touched his skin. He can't save her, as usual, and it's another guilt source for him. In the next cell, there's another woman imprisoned, Keelycael, someone others call the Red Queen. Because of certain facts, Torin can get himself out of the cell and rescues Keely too. Their relationship is antagonist at first but while they try to get out of the realm where they were in, mutual respect develops.
As time goes by and their relationship intensifies, Torin starts to be scared of what it means because his demon will infect and kill her. Unless... there's a way to avoid that, but how?
First thing first: Although anyone can read the LOTU books as standalones, most installments require previous knowledge to follow the plots. I really don't advise people to read out of order because it gets confusing. I find some scenes confusing and I've been reading the series since the first book was released.
Personally, though, this one of my favorite things too, the way things connect to one another, how certain facts happen only because has happened already and how every plot line has a link to something else. I do love series like this, especially if I like the characters and their personalities.
It's a fact that there are things that annoy me and that is something also present in this book. That is why some parts just get on my nerves, namely the confusion in some books and how tricky it is to understand why some things are happening and also why there is such a highlight on the sexual part of the couple's relationship when it's not the best time...I mean, there's a plot going on...
On a secondary level, but also slightly annoying is how characters are speaking or dealing with a certain critical situation (or not that important but still) and for one reason or another they are interrupted and there's no explanation for that talk or anything as a follow-up. It's irritating to see this happen. I understand the need to propel the plot, to not end things right away, but from a reader's POV it's something one notices.
This book had good elements, like I said, there's world development, we see what is going on and what is suppose to happen in the future, we even have glimpses about possible, likely, future couples.
The author has a lot of imagination and I'm always curious to see how the paranormal side of things develops and why...
The romance wasn't as amazing as that, considering the amount of time poor Torin has suffered and before his book he seemed a bit more controlled and polite, somehow in his book he seemed more alpha than as described before. I get that, but it's weird anyway.
Keelycael is a great heroine, both fragile and strong when the scene requires but she, as many other heroines, has a certain wild side which can be very amusing and appropriate but not always what I wished to see, especially in more important scenes. I wanted her humane side more often. She's not human, but all the characters have a humanization to make us sympathetic. I just wanted to see this side of Keely more.
Of course there's a HEA in the end, quite interesting in its particularity, but not as game changing as it happened in other books.
All in all, a good installment and of course, there ideas about the next book and how, despite so many people not buying the hero, at least not yet. I'm curious to see what happens.
Grade: 7/10
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