One Silent Night by Sherrilyn Kenyon
‘Dark-Hunter’ series Book #13
Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages – Publisher: St. Martin’s Paperbacks (November 4, 2008 ) – Language: English – ISBN-10: 0312947062 – ISBN-13: 978-0312947064
Back of the Book reads:
In the world of the Dark-Hunters, all hell’s breaking loose…
Stryker has sent word and is gathering his forces.
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.
New battle lines are being drawn as the Dark-Hunters rally for a final showdown on ONE SILENT NIGHT.
One Silent Night at Amazon.com
One Silent Night at Chapters.ca
One Silent Night at Amazon.ca
7-Nov-08 to 8-Nov-08
Review: Not completely disappointed, but it’s cutting it really close!
Okay, let me begin by saying I’m a huge fan of Sherrilyn Kenyon. I was first introduced to her Dark-Hunter series with Seize the Night, loved it, went back and got the rest of the series and have been following it ever since. Let me continue that by saying: although the story and plot was good, I was disappointed and found the book overpriced.
I paid $8.09 CND for OSN – I have an iRewards card through Chapters. I felt like I was cheated. I opened the book, saw the size of the font and though, WTH! If the font was the usual size, no way would the book be any bigger than maybe 200 pages. That is the size of a Harlequin romance, for crying out loud! A novella! Not impressed with that. Automatically it put me in a frame of mind that didn’t favour the book.
With that said, I’ll jump into it without giving too much away. Kenyon warned that this book is a bridge between the last and the next books. It most certainly is that, but I wasn’t thrilled.
Stryker is the bad guy – plain and simple. He has a happily-ever-after; while that’s not a completely good thing, it’s not a completely bad thing either. That’s not why I picked up OSN. Stryker is forced to take the souls of humans to stay alive: we already knew that. We may not be happy with it, but we understand it. But the whole ‘pitty me, Dad vowed to rape, torture and kill my pregnant wife while I watched so I better leave her to protect her’ BS was just that – a big butt-load of BS. That card shouldn’t have been played. Is it supposed to drag sympathy from the reader? Um, if Zephyra was a nicer person, perhaps, maybe. And that’s a big Maybe!
I hated Zephyra, with a capital ‘H’. The synopsis called her a shrew… oh, she’s much more than that, but unfortunately, I need to watch my language; I’ve a few names to call her, but I have kids present. I understand why she’d hate Stryker. Should he have told her the entire truth behind why he was leaving her? YES! D’uh. She turned to Artemis, who gave shelter for her and her daughter, Medea. She did what she had to do to keep her daughter and herself alive. Do I commend that? What mother wouldn’t. However, the hell she lived through shouldn’t have been enough to turn her into the cruel b*tch that she now is. Stryker doesn’t do torture, but Zephyra seems to revel in it, especially towards Jared, a Sephiroth. Jared had been offered to Zephyra to keep her from killing a gallu demon. She took custody of him and killed the demon anyway, refusing to be anyone’s slave. She has control over Jared because of a collar previously placed on him, but what I don’t get is her continual torture directed at him. She’s just plain cruel. I can understand cruelty if there’s something behind it. In Jared’s case, from her, there is none. But his traitorous act that pretty much wiped out the rest of his kind is the reason why he’s wearing the collar, that he’s supposed to be tortured for all eternity because of that act, and that act plus the thousands of years of torture has him in the frame of mind that goes along with: I just want to die. If you ask me, that hand is being overplayed. Enough already! Medea seems to be the only one of two in that bunch that has a compassionate bone in her body. I’m curious to see what becomes of her. LOL, wouldn’t it seem fitting if she becomes Nick’s heroine? I liked Davyn, even though he’s one of Stryker’s commanders. While he needs to feed on the souls of humans to stay alive, he is Anglekos: he only steals the souls of evil humans, those who deserve to die; ei: rapists, pedophiles, murderers. The lowest of the low. And strangely enough, he reminds me of my brother, Davin, who may be a big teddy bear but who’d do anything to protect his family.
So, since Stryker doesn’t care if he lives or dies now that everyone he’s ever loved is dead, he does something really stupid so that he can finally get rid of Ash and Nick. And wouldn’t you know it – that act comes back to bite him in the ass. What’s surprising is how Stryker, Ash and Nick join forces to beat back the really, really bad guy, to save the world. And yet, Stryker and Ash, even though they respect each other, are still at an impasse; Stryker’s daimons need to feed on the souls of humans to stay alive, Ash and his Dark-Hunters are protecting human kind. But there’s a curve – daimons are now feeding off gallu demons – and can now walk in daylight. That has me curious to see what’s going to happen and I’ll be continuing the series. And Nick… He is now a Malachai, a supremely powerful creature. And until my curiosity is sated, I will always want to know if Nick and Ash can get passed what happened to Cherise, Nick’s mother.
Now that we have a few glimpses of what’s to come, I can close my review by saying that I am far from satisfied. I have never, in all the DH novels, given any of them lower than a 4 star. This one’s a solid 3, and that seems somehow generous, which is very, very, unlike me.
Rating: 
