- ISBN13: 9780312947064
- Condition: New
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Product Description
While the world carries on unawares, Stryker, who leads an army of demons and vampires, is plotting an all out onslaught against his enemies—which, unfortunately for us, includes the entire human race. To avenge his sister, Stryker prepares to annihilate the Dark-Hunters. But things go awry when his oldest enemy returns. Enter his ex-wife. Zephyra. Just when he thought nothing could stop him, he’s now embroiled in a centuries old war with a shrew who gives new meaning to pain.
Betsy @ 4:45 pm
I have loved Stryker’s character since he first began in the series, but this book was a total let down. The series has become too full of otherworldly characters and lost that bit of human contact that made the series great.
Now, every time one of the lead characters fall in love there is an easy out their HEA(Happily ever after for those unfamiliar) Stryker’s heroine is his exwife from 11000 plus years ago and not worth my time she was so unlikeable. The fact that she tortured one of the characters Jared that we fans know is to be another Arc of the story was just a yawn we just went through that with Ash for years dealing with Artemis.
War was the best part of the book and it became kind of bland in the end. There was a bit of interesting dynamic in which Stryker, Ash and Nick had to work together, but it was much too brief.
Also, Savitar another character I adore basically got his whole HEA set up with the basic love/hate thing S.K. has started to make her central theme with what I am sure will be his relationship with Ash’s mother Apollymi.
There was promise but the story just seemed as if it was an after thought, as if the author, said, well since we are beginning a new section of the story let’s just throw out the whole history of the series.
Unlike others I personally adored the once great play between the Dark Hunters, Dream Hunters, Were Hunters and now even the baddies like Stryker, I’ll base this on the male leads but it seems to me that it was much better when the women they came across weren’t all superwomen who all knew Judo, Karate or could kick butt with the guys. I don’t have anything against it but it’s almost like I preferred the opposites attract angle she began the series with like in the first 6 or 7 books. Although there was the supernatural elements the heroine wasn’t always perfect. They had depth and I loved to find out what happened next.
In Stryker’s story I found it hard to sympathize or even care of his relationship with Zephyra. Yes, they once loved each other and although a bad guy Stryker was always one to go by his Honor. But adding his HEA as a demonic hit woman for Artemis who keeps a slave to torture and do her bidding just was too unlikable for me.
Even the similar story line from Devil May Cry where Ash finds out he has a daughter with Artemis and now we have Stryker finding out the same thing was a big yawn. All, I could think was how pitiful it was to read about the basic story of Ash’s life.
What would have been good? More of the history of Stryker that was mentioned the horrors that he went through. It was mentioned that he’d been torn apart or something similar and then never mentioned again, by who and when?
And Zephyra yes they loved each other, but she can’t forget or forgive what happened those 11,000 years ago? Just too much of nothing. There was not much empathy to the book at all which was so prevelent in previous books.
Between Ash’s miracle heroine Tori who became powerful too it’s just too many easy outs for a series that was once wonderful with intrigue, twists and just a great spirit.
It always made me happy to read a Sherrilyn Kenyon book because even though I am not those characters the women in the beginning were likeable and unique.
One Silent Night like Acheron has fallen into what appears to be a fill in the blanks style of writing.
A. Hero is this and can’t have a human love interest for whatever reason.
B. Female either is supernatural already or has to get great powers too.
I am not against the Gods, Goddesses and other otherworldly creatures getting their happy ending but make it exciting, wonderful, not just a repetition of old ideas.
Bad pun but bring back the magic. The days of Bride and Vane, Tabitha & Valerius, Grace & Julian, Zarek & Astrid, Talon & Sunshine and Kyrian & Amanda.
Blue Note @ 5:58 pm
I found this book a terrible read. Not a worthy addition to Sherrilyn’s writing. She’s introducing so many characters and so many wild explanations about what is occuring in her Dark hunter world that I can hardly keep up. How the heck is Nick a gallu demon clothnian, Malachi or whatever the heck he is. Things have gone just way to far off kilter even for Sherilyn’s world. I realize that authors evolve, but man this is just ridiculous. I long for a good old fashioned dark hunter novel now or even a werehunter novel. Too many characters have crowded into Sherilyn’s world.
In this book, stryker, Ash’s mortal enemy (aside from Nick) has found his soul mate some gallu demon woman from 11,000 years ago. (rolling eyes). More torture as Jared (yet another strange character) is beaten mercilessly for an unknown reason.
I tell you, after this novel, I’m taking a break from Sherilyn’s writing and perhaps she needs to as well. I read Ash’s novel (I liked it except for the first depressing 400 pages of torture), and the novel before that with Simone a gallu demon and the introduction of the demon broker character.
Now I can’t keep up, too many characters, underdeveloped. No indepth story line. Something got lost in her journey towards the ‘ever crazy’.
I miss stories like Zarek, in my book, her best dark hunter story to date.
Get back on track Sherilyn.
J. Kollasch @ 8:03 pm
I’m not going to go into a lot of plot detail because its been explained before, but I will warn you this, you have to have read at least 80% of the other books in the series in order to know whats going on. As it was I still couldn’t remember half of the old plot details from books I’ve read in the past. If you’ve read any of the Dark Hunter Series before this you know that Stryker is the evil leader of the Daimons who once partnered with Apollomyi to destroy the human race and is now trying to become the ruler of the world. Son of Apollo but cursed to walk in the darkness like his Daimon brethren he is at the end of his desire to live. He summons War, a demon that does in fact cause War to break out, to kill both Acheron and Nick Gautier, two of his nemesis. In the meantime his ex-wife the equally evil Zephyra is asked by Artemis to kill him but he cons her into living with him for two weeks so he can win her back.
The romance was lukewarm, the character of Stryker as a loving man seemed forced to me. Zephyra, the love interest was mean and cold, which should be a perfect match for Stryker the king of evil, but unfortunately she just seemed like a whiny, ungrateful brat. She also introduces several new characters and plot twists that just add more confusion to an already weird plot. I’m starting to have a hard time keeping up with all of the otherworldly beings and their powers and weird names they have, but maybe I’m just slow. Oh and did I mention that the book is only 310 pages long, which would usually take me a little while to read but it looks like she increased the size of the typeface and spacing to make the book seem longer then it actually is. In total it took me three hours to read, which makes me want my money back. I used to love the Dark Hunters but this book seemed like a forced effort to produce more novels rather than something that took time and heart to write. If this was the first book in a new series I wouldn’t have even made the effort to finish the first half of the book. This may be my last Sherrilyn Kenyon novel, but being the stupid person that I am I’m sure I’ll buy and read the next crap she produces. If you want to try a new paranormal series that is pretty interesting I would try Kresley Cole’s “Immortals After Dark” series.
Alyce In Wonderland @ 10:38 pm
What a disappointment! So many things were off about this book, I’m not bothering to write a synopsis in my review. I read the first half, then got so bored that I skimmed the second half. Then again, with a type font large enough for my third grader to read, the book was a quicky anyway.
Why the book lost my interest:
1. Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Stryker the mean bad-a** Daimon who slaughtered his own son, Urian, in cold blood? How can it be that he is now a teary-eyed sentimental sap, with too much honor to stomach the torturing of slaves? How is it that he is now a voluntarily whipping boy for his ex-wife, Zephyra?
2. The total lack of basis for Zephyra’s blood thirsty hatred of her ex-husband. (She wasn’t Urian’s mother.) I understand… he left her. Yeah, that’s it. He walked out on her… 11,000 YEARS AGO! You would think time would have calmed her anger a bit by now. No, she is salivating at the thought of ripping his throat out. Ummmm…. we’ve all had a relationship go bad, but how many of us wanted to commit violent murder over it? The whole thing was beyond ridiculous.
3. Way too many new uber-powerful characters are popping out of the woodwork. At least three of whom are so powerful they can wring Ash out like a wet rag. That much power, and none of them were heard of until now? It seemed like Kenyon was desperately throwing new faces into the mix to revive the DH storyline.
4. Nick’s new found identity… Oh please.
5. Total lack of any actual DH activity. Nothing but gods and demons/Daimons.
6. BORING story. No part of this book got my adrenaline pumping. I was never worried for any of the characters. Never really cared what happened to any of them.
7. The ending… Ugh! Is Kenyon joking? In less than one page, the Daimons are suddenly able to walk in the daylight? After 6 years of this series, one of the main species is rewritten. Unbelievable. Even for fiction.
S. Woods @ 1:08 am
Stryker (the villain in several previous stories) is finally given his own book and his own HEA. The book opens with Stryker plotting revenge against two of his biggest enemies: Acheron Parthenopaeus and Nick Gautier. To achieve this, he brings back some ancient beings that even the greek gods had problems destroying. Yet, when Zephyra, Stryker’s ex-wife and one true love enters the picture, all of his carefully thought-of plans go awry. Her presence into his life and his current machinations, has the propensity to turn dangerous situations…deadly chaotic.
Sherrilyn Kenyon’s “One Silent Night” has given us even more “beings” for an already overpopulated world. In earlier books, Sherrilyn shaped her world with a myriad of gods, dark-hunters, daimons, werehunters and “others” that created a comfortable balance of “good and evil.” As the series progressed, Sherrilyn added even more powerful beings, blurred the line of “good and evil” and started to turn the series into something a “little confusing.” Well…the “little confusion” has turned into “full-fledged disorientation,” and there is no line between “good and evil.” As someone who has read the series from the beginning, even I’m perplexed on the events and the hierarchy.
I did not like this book for several reasons. It didn’t flow well. The transitions between scenes was really choppy and the pacing uneven. Unfortunately, that does seem to be a trend for many of Ms. Kenyon’s stories. The language in these stories always throw me for a loop. These are people who have lived for thousands of years and yet they talk like teenagers, complete with bad slang. While the plot in this book was fairly original, it just wasn’t enough to save this story. Something else that didn’t change was the publisher’s propensity to make this book seem longer than what it really is. While this book may have numbered 310 pages, it WAS NOT 310 pages. The font was large, and the spacing extensive.
The characters were also problematic: 1)Stryker, who was the villain in most of her previous books, was just not leading man material. Here is a man who killed his own son, and yet, we are to now view him in a different light. A light such as loving husband and doting father…uh, I don’t think so. 2) Zephyra didn’t inspire “warm and fuzzy” feelings either. She was so evil and cold-hearted that I found myself wishing that she DID NOT get a HEA.
Because I have followed these books from the beginning, I feel compelled to continue to read the series. But quite frankly, Sherrilyn has not written a good solid story in a very long time. I’ve read her last few books thinking, “Wow. She must have rushed to finish it, trying to beat some deadline!” Unfortunately, “One Silent Night” does not break the trend, as I thought the same thing about this story. I do not recommend it to any readers, whether you are a fan of the series or not.