Review: Death of Darkness (Immortal Guardians #9) by Dianne Duvall

Hello, fellow bookworms. Today, I’d like to share my thoughts about Death of Darkness by Dianne Duvall. Book 9 in her highly popular paranormal romance series, Immortal Guardians. My thanks to Dianne for an advanced copy of this book.

What’s Death of Darkness about?

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The series features a new twist on the vampire genre.

Immortals and vampires are both infected with the same virus, which lends them dramatically increased strength, speed, healing capabilities and enhanced senses. Vampires are humans who have been infected, whereas immortals are gifted ones who have been infected. Gifted ones are men and women who were born with extremely advanced DNA that lends them special gifts, such as healing, telepathy, precognition and the like. Vampires rapidly descend into madness when the virus damages their brains but Immortals don’t; their advanced DNA protects them from that aspect of the virus.

What did I like about Death of Darkness?

I really love Ms Duvall’s writing style and find her books very easy to read (but impossible to put down! Lol!).

She writes intelligent, engaging stories with a collection of well written characters, set against an imaginative world that cleverly mixes fantasy and reality, making it so easy to submerse oneself completely in her books. The pace of her stories is usually fast, full of action and contains a couple of plot lines which run alongside the main romantic story arc, but fear not lovely readers, she manages to pack this all in without making you feel overwhelmed, bewildered or lost.

Existing fans of this series have been eagerly awaiting this book since the series began in 2011. Death of Darkness was worth the wait!

I enjoy books more where the characters are not purely good or evil but a multifaceted mix of positive and negative traits and thankfully all of the characters within the Immortal Guardians world have been created like this. The fact that the characters within these pages have been written with personalities that we can see in the real world around us – even though the majority of them are mythical, paranormal beings – adds that level of believability to this fantasy tale for me.

If you’ve read my reviews before, then you’ll know that I connect to a story more when the main female character is intelligent, resilient, self-reliant and has plenty of gumption; I wasn’t disappointed here. Leah was perfect. She has oodles of gumption with a fantastic sense of humour that had me COL (Chuckling Out Loud!) numerous times. Of course, as the leader of the Immortal Guardians we had already met him in the previous books but I loved spending a day in Seth’s big shoes and finding out more about the man behind the name legend.

The mystery and thriller aspects of this tale kept me guessing, the action kept me on the edge of my seat, the romance between Seth and Leah warmed my heart, the banter kept me giggling and the passion set my tummy a-tingling. *oh my*

Was there anything I disliked?

Nope – even though some of the more violent scene sent my emotions spinning, there’s nothing about this book that I didn’t absolutely love!!

Although I should warn you, Ms Duvall has already confirmed that this is not the last book in the Immortal Guardians series and as such she has left a wee teaser, cliffhanger-esque ending, but rest assured, dear readers it’s not a perilous life-or-death situation thank heavens as you know how I HATE those.

Ms Duvall says that all of the books in her Immortal Guardians series can be read as standalone titles.

The romance aspect of the tale between Seth and Leah is concluded by the end of this book in Ms Duvall’s signature HEA style. Plus, tries to ensure her new readers aren’t lost by weaving much of the pertinent information about past adventures and existing characters into this story.

However, jumping in cold, I feel that you’d miss the nuances of knowing the existing characters As well as the understanding about the dynamics of relationships. Similar to most series, there are background story arcs running through this book that continue into subsequent ones.

Therefore, what I’m saying is…

I loved Death of Darkness – couldn’t stop reading it!

It had everything that I look for in a 5 star book; intelligent writing style that’s easy to read, main characters with depth of personality that I can believe in, depth of character in the supporting cast, believable background story/setting and a balanced mix of relationship and/or romance to action scenes and sex scenes. I was left breathless, wondering where on earth Ms Duvall would take us next in this addictive series!

I would recommend Death of Darkness to adults who love stories with strong, loyal heroes and independent capable heroines. Plot lines with tense and often traumatic and brutal confrontations as well as hot lust and romance.

I hope that my review of DEATH OF DARKNESS (IMMORTAL GUARDIANS #9) has encouraged you to find out more. Click on any of the links below to check out the book yourself. Keep reading to find out more about the series and Dianne Duvall.

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Thank you for stopping by and for taking the time to read my review. I hope I’ve tempted you to add Death of Darkness to your TBR pile.

I really LOVE this series. Dianne Duvall is one of the amazing authors on my favourites’ page. Have you read any of her books? Drop me a comment below.

Bye for now,

Flora X