Dance With The Devil

Dance With The Devil
Sherrilyn Kenyon
Paperback 368 pgs
St. Martins Press












Amazon's Blurb -
The third entry in Kenyon's Dark-Hunter series, which focuses on the sexy vampire-like immortals who defend humans from soul-stealing Daimons, is darker than last year's Night Embrace due to its change in setting (from the French Quarter of New Orleans to the isolated Alaska wilderness) and its focus on Zarek, the baddest of all the Dark-Hunters. Physically gorgeous but scarred psychologically thanks to his former life as a Greco-Roman slave, Zarek is bitter, feared and rejected by everyone, including the Greek goddess who transformed him. It's up to the emotionally detached nymph Astrid, sister to the three Fates, to judge whether 900 years of isolation has made Zarek too vicious to be redeemed. To accomplish this task, she tries to push Zarek "to the heights of his tolerance and beyond." Sasha, a werewolf posing as a mere pet, serves as her protector, and the witty telepathic banter between them is a nice counterpoint to the seriousness of Zarek and Astrid's relationship. Kenyon's slangy dialogue also leavens the story. In the midst of a heated battle, for instance, a disoriented Astrid asks Zarek what's happening, and his blase reply is, "Not much.... Some invincible asshole is trying to kill me." Those who can't get enough of bad boy heroes and Buffy the Vampire Slayer reruns will relish this roguish tale.

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This is #3 in Sherrilyn’s Dark Hunter series.  I finished this baby in 1 day.  Dance With The Devil focuses on Zarek, the most tormented and dark of all the hunters, or so it’s supposed to be.  Having only read 3 I don’t think I can make that distinction….yet.  Artemis wants Zarek dead.  He is considered an absolute loose cannon with no redeeming qualities.  Acheron strongly disagrees and insists that Astrid a justice nymph, judge Zarek first.  Of course this just makes Artemis extremely ticked, but she begrudgingly agrees.  Of all places that they have exiled Zarek for the past 900 yrs, it is Alaska.  In a barren and desolate area he is dumped back in the wilderness after helping his fellow Hunters while in New Orleans, fully expecting to be executed.  After a failed attempt on his life by Dark Hunter Squires-those who care for the Hunters, he is wounded and found by Astrid.  While judging, she is rendered blind so as not to skew her judging.  She brings him to her cabin where her goading and baiting of him begins.  All this in hopes of provoking him into the violence that Artemis and some of the other Hunters feel he is capable of.  What ensues can be considered predictable of course, we all know how these stories go, but it was light fun to see their banter with each other, and that he isn’t the monster some think him to be.

Truly, this wasn’t as good as I had hoped.  I tend to like the broody ones the most, in the vein of Vishous(BlackDagger Brotherhood) and Tegan(Midnight Breed), so I was hoping that this would be the same.  It fell a little flat with me.  Not enough to stop reading the series, I really want to get to Ash’s book and find out what all the buzz is about his heartbreaking story.  It’s quick and easy so I’d recommend it regardless.

I give it 3 cannolis