A.K. Caggiano - Throne in the Dark

His dark destiny awaits, and nothing will stand in his way. Except her.
Dark lord
Demon spawn
Prophesied realm destroyer
With a demon for a father, Damien Maleficus Bloodthorne’s destiny could be nothing but nefarious, and with the completion of his most vicious spell, Damien is on the cusp of fulfilling the evil inevitability all of his dark machinations have led to.
And then, her.
Bubbly
Obnoxious
Blonde
Harboring secrets of her own, a tiny yet troublesome thief calling herself Amma completely upsets Damien’s malevolent plans when she mistakenly gets chained to his side through magic, forcing him to drag her across the realm. Killing her would fix things, of course, but the nauseatingly sweet Amma proves herself useful on Damien's unholy crusade and then proves herself the source of something even more sinister: feelings.
Will Damien be forced to abandon his villainous birthright to help the tender thorn in his side? Or will he manage to overcome the virtue Amma insists on inspiring and instead cut it out at the heart?

Comment: I decided to give this book a try after seeing it being recommended as having a grumpy/sunshine pairing and I do like this romance pairing, so...

Damien is the son of an evil lord and he feels his destiny is to be as evil. He also wants to help free his father, who has been imprisoned in a crystal, and to do that he finally comes up with the perfect tool, a magical orb. However, his plans to use the orb, which would allow him to control someone in the best place to be useful, go terribly wrong when he meets this young woman at a market and she tries to rob him. In the process, she grabs the orb, which is then absorbed by this woman, making it necessary for him to stick close to her...

Amma is on a mission, she wants to retrieve a certain scroll, and she had to travel to a shady area where it's supposedly located, but all goes wrong when she meets Damien. Now, not only does she need to stay close to him but she is being controlled by him. Nevertheless, she is able to see a side of him that isn't as evil as he claims to be, but how will he react when he learns her secrets?

I didn't have a great reading experience with this one, to be honest. The little summary I wrote above is pretty much all I got from this story, because the details are very fuzzy and I can't say I'm really disappointed I didn't get more details. This was a boring story to me.

Of course I can now say that the writing style didn't work for me, I could not see the opposites attract trope nor the world building being as attractive as it was meant to be. I struggled with having interest and I confess I actually forced myself to keep going, just to not DNF another book. What I liked, which is the reason I didn't grade this even lower, was the individual details about some characters and the magical elements here and there.

The plot is confusing to me, the only thing I got out of it was that both main characters had a mission, had to accomplish a certain task and then they went, looking to do it. On the way, it seemed as if they were on a sort of road trip, in which they met many new people, for some reason or another, and sometimes that gave them a new perspective things and of one another, sometimes it felt as if they were simply doing stuff because the plot had to advance.

Since I wasn't particularly interested in either mission - at first Damien seemed he would be a complex character but I quickly lost interest - I was just turning the pages without retaining much information. I got the feeling not much was happening and the goal was for Damien and Amma to become aware of each other and realize there was more to them than what seemed at first. Usually, I love these types of romances, in which protagonists "peel off" layers as they get to know each other, but this time I didn't have that sensation.

When I finished, I saw the reference that the story would continue in the next installment, thus this being a trilogy of course not everything was made obvious here, but I don't feel interested in going on. I liked Damien, for the most part, and would not mind knowing more about him, something that can be remedied by looking at reviews on the next books, but Amma wasn't a character I empathized with, personality wise. She's a great person but... not captivating to me. Clearly, their romance was pretty much nonexistent here, this is the first book and things were mostly being set up.

This didn't work out for me. Several elements were cute, yes, but the ensemble of them didn't seem to fit properly, even more so when the tone was also meant to be slightly funny (it wasn't, for me). Anyway, one more off the pile.

Grade: 4/10