Darkest Torment Summary:Driven to his death by the demon of Distrust, Baden spent centuries in purgatory. Now he's back, but at what cost? Bound to the king of the underworld, an even darker force, he's unable to withstand the touch of another...and he's quickly devolving into a heartless assassin with an uncontrollable temper. Things only get worse when a mission goes awry and he finds himself saddled with a bride—just not his own.
Famed dog trainer Katarina Joelle is forced to marry a monster to protect her loved ones. When she's taken hostage by the ruthless, beautiful Baden immediately after the ceremony, she's plunged into a war between two evils—with a protector more dangerous than the monsters he hunts. They are meant to be enemies, but neither can resist the passion burning between them...and all too soon the biggest threat is to her heart.
But as Baden slips deeper into the abyss, she'll have to teach him to love...or lose him forever.
Darkest Torment Review:
I seem to be going against a lot of readers with my rating of this book. I actually didn't mind it that much. That might have come from the low expectations coming from the previous book, The Darkest Torment. Seriously, I went into this book kind of dreading it. I had such big expectations for The Darkest Torment, which failed miserably and that book was about Torin. This was about Baden, who I rarely met, and didn't think it would be that good. It's kind of sad that a book turned out to be good only if you thought it would be horrible. Oh well, we can only hope the Gena Showalter picks up after this book.
I liked Katarina. Instead of being a bratty immortal, she is a down to earth human. She was fiery, protected what she loved and had a conscience. She was the polar opposite to Baden, who is a complete dominant alpha male. Yes that is redundant, but Baden is so over the edge all the time, it is too much at times. Thankfully, Katarina doesn't take his attitude at all at fights back. That leads to tons and tons of bickering. Some good, some bad.
By the end of the novel, they were fighting over nonsensical stuff. At that point it was irritating and you just wanted to duct tape their mouths.
And the biggest problem came from them not telling each other stuff. Right at the beginning Baden keeps calling her degrading names and doesn't ask for her opinion. Thinking the worst of her when she wants to marry that, "bad, bad man" as Katarina put it, and no it's not Baden. Why, does she let him do this, why doesn't he know the truth? Because Katarina was to angry or prim to give the information. And that took up pages of useless dialogue. Talk about miscommunication.
They did have a lot of nice-ish moments. They started to develop their romance instead of just lusting after one another. I think going with low expectations made it easier to believe in their love story. To be honest, I can't remember most of this book, and I read it about a week ago. The main things I remember are not even about Baden and Katarina, but the side characters. They were the reason my rating is this high.
1. Katarina got bonded to many, many hellhounds and almost took out Hades (with him helping her out?). Is anyone else seeing parallels between Katarina and Cara from Eternal Ride? At the very she was bonded to all the hellhounds, to save her life, because the pup or in TDT's case, pups protect the heroine. There are so many similarities, more than I listed. I have to say that Larissa Ione did it MUCH better. A lot more believable to.
2. The hilarious quotes that started off each chapter. Basically each chapter was given a favourite saying from a LoU character. Here are my faves...
"Benefits to having me as your ally? You have me as your all. Enough said". Hades
"Your hardest times often lead to your greatest moments. So get hard". William
"Only one thing should be infectious. Your smile". Torin (back to being a sweetheart)
"Steal the box, they said. It'll be fun, they said". Baden (that's funny! But you gotta have read LoU to understand)
"They call me a bitch. I called them an ambulance". Cameo
"When a girl says 'Go have fun' do not go have fun. Abort mission!" Scarlet
"When I flip you off, run. I've just told you how many second you have left to life". Maddox
"I mixed a vial of poison, called it Kindness...and killed people with Kindness". Josephina
3. How sad Cameo is. She needs her story now!! Luckily, it's next which I can't wait for! Hopefully, it's not a flop because I'm expecting a lot from the Darkest Promise. And I hope she gets the ending she deserves!
4. Galen and Legion's book needs to happen! Galen is slowly becoming more of a likeable character and I don't know what happened to Legion. That is a mystery since she wasn't a part of this book.
5. Gilly and William? I'm not sure how it's going to happen now, the new twist seems much more interesting. William turned into a douche when Gilly need him the most. But then again, her other option isn't much better. But then Gilliam seems weird to me know cause of this...
"I love you, Liam. When I had nothing and no one, you gave me friendship and joy, and I will be forever grateful to you."
Seems like they're parting ways. Well, I guess we'll see in their upcoming books.
6. Katarina did not freak out when coming into the immortal world. She was reasonable. Bit panicky and a bit calm. Wonderful!
7. The immortal girls are really irritating. They grate on my nerves and need to grow up. How funny is it that they are thousands of years old and act like spoiler three year olds? Read this book, you'll figure out why and who I'm talking about (it's not all of them, thank god).
8. Hades is amazing! Can't wait for his book cause it's going to be packed with sarcasm and action. We get to see him talk about the 12 warriors with his own take, and boy was that good.
"What is love?" And no he's not being sarcastic, he did ask this question.
"Torin...Other Distinguishing Marks:...He's ugly as hell and witless. Carries the All-key inside him, which means he can't be confined in any way-- I'm sure there's a reason that trait sucks ass and I'll think of it soon...Placement:...I have no room for him on my team. I
This part of the book alone bumped up the rating by a star. Another star for the Maddox short story and side character plot lines as well. So that is a total of four stars for the Darkest Torment.
P.S. Don't think of this book as terrible, it wasn't actually. Pretty good for the series. But with the unmemorable story, it was a low rating. The story is good; characters need more work though. Maybe next time Showalter.
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