The Darkest Fire

a good beginning to the series.

💬: "Kiss her? “I shouldn’t. I can’t.” Though gods, Geryon wanted to, desperately, and found his gaze straying to her lips. They were lush and red. Glistening. His mouth watered for a taste of them. His horns, sensitive to his emotions as they were, throbbed."

Showalter, Gena. The Darkest Fire (Lords of the Underworld) (p. 41). HQN Books. Kindle Edition.

📖Genres: romance, paranormal romance, paranormal, mythology, demons, novella, supernatural, urban fantasy

📚Page Count: 82

🎧Audiobook Length: 01h 54min

👩🏾‍🏫My Rating: ⭐️⭐️.5 - 2.5/5

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TW - <spoiler>Death, Confinement, Murder, Grief, Sexual content, War, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail</spoiler>

The Darkest Fire is a novella and the first story in the Lords of the Underworld series by Gena Showalter (it's considered to be chronologically book 0.5.) Geryon, Guardian of Hell is the guardian of hell and he meets Kadence, Goddess of Oppression at the gates of hell regularly but this time Kadence notices a crack in the gates of hell, and demons start pouring out. Geryon and Kadence decide to fight back and escape hell together. Will they make it to the surface?

This was honestly a bit below average. I couldn't tell if the two main characters were fated mates and because of that their romance and intimacy really felt rushed and like it was instant love/instant lust. By the end of the novella I understood what the point of the story was, which is <spoiler>to tell how Pandora's Box was created in this universe.</spoiler> This was not interesting in the slightest and the dialogue was really corny. I only finished this because it's a novella and very short and because I want give this series another chance by reading the next book and I wanted to have this read before I started the first novel in the "Lords of the Underworld" series.

The spicy scene in this novella was uninteresting. The whole act of them being intimate felt rushed, to be honest. It was definitely an instalove/instalust situation. I don't even remember if the story clarified if they're fated mates or not. I'm giving the spicy scenes two point five chilies 🌶️🌶️.5 out of five chilies

Overall, this was a below average introduction to the Lords of the Underworld series, though I will be continuing the series with book 1, "The Darkest Night", in hopes that it's better than this novella. I'm giving this 3 out of 5 stars.

⭐️⭐️.5 - 2.5/5 Stars

I listened to this audiobook for free on [Libbyapp.com]