DARKNESS UNDONE is a fantastic book in a fantastic series.
Part of the
Marked Souls' series, DARKNESS UNDONE not only does a
fantastic job with concise exposition, it also grabs you and
will not let you go until it is finished. The world creation
is amazing, with repentant demons possessing people with
fractured souls to make them talya in order to fight evil
creatures, those possessed of unrepentant demons called
djinni with their own mission, and a special bond between
male talya and the very few females who exist.
Sidney Westerbrook has always wanted to be a Bookkeeper for
the talya, revered because of their intense objectivity. He
has trained himself to constantly be on the outside looking
in and to deny all emotions. Well, he thought he had until
he came to Chicago to learn something about Chicago's unique
issues and the bond between mated Talya in order to prove he
was good enough to be the London Bookkeeper when his father
dies. After being gently rebuffed by the Chicago leaders,
Sidney takes to the street with feelings of frustration and
irritation. Sidney lives after a devastating attack because
of Alyce, a talya whose demon doesn't seem to fit snugly
into her soul. She will make an excellent study subject
because of her unique experiences.
Alyce has no interest in being scrutinized like a bug or
kept outside of her experiences. She has been lonely too
long. She may have secrets locked in her mind, but Sidney
has secrets he doesn't even know he has. She is wary of
having anything to do with the other talya, but Sidney is
sure they can help, and he is hard to dissuade. However, he
is having more and more difficulty remaining objective when
it comes to Alyce, and those male talya can just keep their
eyes off her, if they don't mind.
DARKNESS UNDONE is an excellent book. The world-crafting is
superb,
the characters are fantastic, and the multiple twists and
turns of conflicts and challenges are amazing. I honestly
kept trying to put it down to go to bed and couldn't do it.
In fact, I picked it up with the plan of just reading the
first page or two, but then I discovered I was still
standing where I'd stopped to do that brief perusal, and
that I was ninety pages in, so I might as well just sit
down. The rest of the series looks great, and I plan to go
grab them, but Alyce and Sidney were just wonderfully broken
with such strength. Yes, it's a love story, but it is so
much more than that: action, adventure, and amazing urban
fantasy, as well.
The war between good and evil has raged for millennia,
and as a powerful new enemy ascends, the Marked Souls
are pushed to the ragged edge…
Sidney Westerbrook has always studied darkness and damnation
from a sensible distance. Now, to earn his place as a league
Bookkeeper, he must discover why Chicago is such a
battleground of soul-linked warriors. But the research
becomes personal when he finds himself over his head and
under attack — and at the mercy of a waif with demon-lit
eyes and a deep yearning in her heart.
Alyce Carver has been alone longer than she can remember,
battered by the living nightmares that haunt her city.
Cornered by yet another gang of demons, she unwittingly
joins forces with a handsome scholar who can salvage her
past, and she in turn may be the key to his investigations.
But she won’t let him go until he shows her everything she’s
been missing.
What begins as an experiment in possession becomes a trial
by desire so powerful it threatens both their lives, even as
it binds their souls.
Excerpt
Chapter 1
To human senses, the Chicago night was dark and
quiet—at least as dark and quiet as a big city could
be. But Sidney Westerbrook knew, somewhere beyond the stark
neon and the shouts with the flattened vowels that grated on
his merely human eyes and ears, the streets seethed with
demonic fury.
And after coming nearly four thousand miles, he wasn't
getting the chance to experience any of it.
Sid stuffed his hands to the bottom of his trouser
pockets, as if he might find a last kilojoule of warmth down
there. His father had warned him London's fog had nothing on
Chicago's wind.
Then again, his father had warned him of quite a lot,
only some of which had seemed relevant. Sid hunched his
shoulders, and his gusty sigh bounced off the upturned
collar of his tweed jacket, fogging his spectacles.
Who would've guessed the Chicago talyan would be such
contrary blighters? All his Bookkeeper studies had prepared
him for the same old, same old: immortal, menacing warriors
with preternatural fighting skills and tortured
demon-possessed souls, et cetera. But these upstart
Yanks—from one of the secondary leagues, no
less—had blown apart the theories of generations of
Bookkeepers before him. Yet despite their obvious need for
objective guidance, they wouldn't give him, their emergency
Bookkeeper, even the time of day.
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