Review: Darkest Sinner (The Dark Ones #5) by Rachel Van Dyken
Print Length: 350 pages
Publisher: Rachel van Dyken (September 24, 2019)
From Goodreads.com: I've always known pain. Existence. Night.
Made a sinner.Without a soul to keep me tethered to the world I so desperately want to be a part of but am damned to rule…
Life isn't living.
Not when everyone sees you as enemy number one, King of the demon race and yet something much more… powerful and sinister pulses beneath the surface of my skin.
It started when I met her, the power surging under my fingertips like the cruel universe was finally answering my screams at night for something more.
And just like that, the memories come, only I don't know if they're mine or someone else's entirely.
Long ago, I made a bargain with a god.
A soul for a soul.
I spent thousands of years without this awareness and now?
Everything I touch turns to ash.
Even my own immortal friends fear what I am.
Everyone but her. The day to my night.
Part of me doesn't want to know what I am.
But it's too late, too all-consuming.
Darkness is coming.
That darkness, I'm afraid. Is me.
*******************
My Rating: 2 stars out of 5
Let me begin by saying that although this one is billed as "the next stand-alone novel" in her Dark Ones series, it is not. In fact, I have read each previous book in this series, and I was still horribly lost with this one.
I think I know where the author was trying to go with this. And honestly? I am IN LOVE with the idea of soulmates. Of two people destined, or cursed, to roam the earth forever searching for their missing half. I am also down for having one of those people be "reborn" time and again until the link is completed.
I remember the first book in this series. It was intriguing. It was page-turning. It was AMAZING. And then somewhere, the lines became blurred. And instead of it being a pretty straight forward story, we started getting mixed blood. Now this person wasn't what we thought they were, they were really this spoiler. And this person was a spoiler mixed with another spoiler.
What started as one of the best paranormal series' I had EVER read.. became something unrecognizable. It became so confusing that I oftentimes found myself utterly lost. Forgetting who was what.
This, unfortunately for me, was the case when it came to Timber's novel. He was freaking fantastic as a demon. There was the potential for redemption.
And then
***SPOILER ALERT***
SERIOUSLY DO NOT READ ANY FARTHER UNLESS YOU WANT IT SPOILED FOR YOU.
THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING.
What in the hell was up with the whole he's really the Egyptian God Anubis story-line? Honestly. This book especially became so far fetched that while it was definitely a page-turner (mostly me trying to figure out what the heck was going on in between pages of good story-line), by the time I finished I still felt lost, confused, and as though the author completely lost sight of what she wanted this series to be when she published the first book.
I miss the olden days of story-telling. When maybe there was a plot twist here or there, but not when the entire cast of characters has been seemingly re-written on a whim.
Last, but not least, and probably my BIGGEST peeve with this story is the inaccuracies. If you want to make your characters Egyptian Gods that's awesome. But for the love of God, at least get that much right.
Horus and Anubis were half brothers. But neither one of them was fathered by Set. Their father was Osiris. Also, fun fact, depending on which Horus she meant. Set was a brother to Osiris, Isis, and Horus the Elder, and uncle to Horus the Younger. Now I know some people will consider this to be merely nitpicking, but honestly? If you're going to use the names of Gods that were once worshipped, please at least get it right. Some people do study old Gods.
***END SPOILERS***
It's obvious that I am going to be in the minority here, and that's fine. What didn't work for me will no doubt work for someone else. And on the whole, I don't think this was a badly written novel by any means. For me, it was just entirely way too confusing and too out there for me to fully enjoy.
DISCLAIMER 1: There seems to be some confusion as to why the low rating. It wasn't just because of what I mentioned in the spoiler section. It was because there was so much going on, and so many characters that were crossed with this or that, that I honestly didn't know who was who or what the heck was going on some of the time. It isn't that the author is a bad one - not in the least. It was just this story (as with the last couple in this series) has created entirely new species, but so many of them that it's impossible to keep track of them. Instead of a cohesive story, I'm left trying to decipher who, or maybe more accurately what, this character is, and how they relate to the story being told.
Let me begin by saying that although this one is billed as "the next stand-alone novel" in her Dark Ones series, it is not. In fact, I have read each previous book in this series, and I was still horribly lost with this one.
I think I know where the author was trying to go with this. And honestly? I am IN LOVE with the idea of soulmates. Of two people destined, or cursed, to roam the earth forever searching for their missing half. I am also down for having one of those people be "reborn" time and again until the link is completed.
I remember the first book in this series. It was intriguing. It was page-turning. It was AMAZING. And then somewhere, the lines became blurred. And instead of it being a pretty straight forward story, we started getting mixed blood. Now this person wasn't what we thought they were, they were really this spoiler. And this person was a spoiler mixed with another spoiler.
What started as one of the best paranormal series' I had EVER read.. became something unrecognizable. It became so confusing that I oftentimes found myself utterly lost. Forgetting who was what.
This, unfortunately for me, was the case when it came to Timber's novel. He was freaking fantastic as a demon. There was the potential for redemption.
And then
***SPOILER ALERT***
SERIOUSLY DO NOT READ ANY FARTHER UNLESS YOU WANT IT SPOILED FOR YOU.
THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING.
What in the hell was up with the whole he's really the Egyptian God Anubis story-line? Honestly. This book especially became so far fetched that while it was definitely a page-turner (mostly me trying to figure out what the heck was going on in between pages of good story-line), by the time I finished I still felt lost, confused, and as though the author completely lost sight of what she wanted this series to be when she published the first book.
I miss the olden days of story-telling. When maybe there was a plot twist here or there, but not when the entire cast of characters has been seemingly re-written on a whim.
Last, but not least, and probably my BIGGEST peeve with this story is the inaccuracies. If you want to make your characters Egyptian Gods that's awesome. But for the love of God, at least get that much right.
Horus and Anubis were half brothers. But neither one of them was fathered by Set. Their father was Osiris. Also, fun fact, depending on which Horus she meant. Set was a brother to Osiris, Isis, and Horus the Elder, and uncle to Horus the Younger. Now I know some people will consider this to be merely nitpicking, but honestly? If you're going to use the names of Gods that were once worshipped, please at least get it right. Some people do study old Gods.
***END SPOILERS***
It's obvious that I am going to be in the minority here, and that's fine. What didn't work for me will no doubt work for someone else. And on the whole, I don't think this was a badly written novel by any means. For me, it was just entirely way too confusing and too out there for me to fully enjoy.
DISCLAIMER 1: There seems to be some confusion as to why the low rating. It wasn't just because of what I mentioned in the spoiler section. It was because there was so much going on, and so many characters that were crossed with this or that, that I honestly didn't know who was who or what the heck was going on some of the time. It isn't that the author is a bad one - not in the least. It was just this story (as with the last couple in this series) has created entirely new species, but so many of them that it's impossible to keep track of them. Instead of a cohesive story, I'm left trying to decipher who, or maybe more accurately what, this character is, and how they relate to the story being told.
DISCLAIMER 2: I received a complimentary copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.
*******************
Darkest Sinner is available from Amazon.com
 by Rachel Van Dyken ){kind=link}
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