Books for Jo

Yes, I did once again read this book. Dark Hunter is a very loved series for me. Being Greek  I grew up with the legends and myths the series is based on and that makes the series extra special for me.

Growing up I had this set of books(eight of them) that were the re-telling of Greek Mythology written in simple words and illustrated for children. I loved those books. Since kindergarden my mother would read them to me every night. I remember begging for more than one story every single time. They were the first books I read on my own(how proud I was of myself) and I actually still have them on my book shelf(some so tattered they need paper clips to stay in one piece). One was Odyssey and the other the Iliad whereas the other six are full of short stories like King Midas, or Pershephone and Hades or even Sisyphus and Orpheus. Some of them are sad and others happy but each and every one of them was a favorite so you can understand why I love this particular series so much. Of course this book is fiction so to make the stories persuasive there are a lot of inacuraties in the myths but this doesn't reduce it's appeal in the least.

Eros and Psyche was one of the stories I enjoyed more than others. I always liked that Aphrodite was such a "mean" girl. Were she to live in today's world she would totally be the "evil cheerleader". This book is about Aphrodite's other son, Julian.

As usual with Kenyon the story isn't full of laughs and giggles. The hero had a bad childhood and an even worse adulthood until the moment he meets our heroine, Grace Alexander, a very ordinary woman with a good but wounded heart.

I always wondered why it's usually the male protagonist that has the "bad" future in Kenyon's books. You would think that because of her difficult childhood SK would write about tortured heroines instead but it's usually the hero that has had it bad. Maybe it makes it easier to keep a distance?  I don't know. As the books progress the drama keeps getting more and it's possible that it becomes too much at some point. I personally believe that SK is overdoing it just a little bit in the latest books but that's my personal opinion. Anyway...back on track...

Julian is a sex slave. Yeap, a nice, wet dream wrapped in a two thousand year old scroll. After a drunk birtday party for two with her best friend Grace summons him without believing that it would actually work. Now the rest is obvious...

Boy sees Girl.

Girl sees Boy.

Sth clenches, sth goes up.

Tah-Dah.... It's love.

The story is nice enough. Julian helps Grace get over some difficult things from her past, Grace heals Julian by loving him just the way he is, Aphrodite bitches a bit but comes around, the bad guys are defeated. The story is solid. The love isn't exactly growing slowly but it isn't insta-love per se either. More like insta-lust followed by a two-weeks-love.

Kenyon's writing is very effortless and not tiring in the least, you can see that the writer is much more immature(in her work) while writing this book than when she wrote her 20th in the series but it just makes it seem fresh not badly worked. Her use of formal and informal speech as well as colloquialisms to show the difference between the characters' upbringing, time periods and nationalities is actually quite impressive and well done(although reading greek spelled in English made me cringe a bit every single time). Generally it's a well worked piece of contemporary literature. (I read this phrase in an article and always wanted to use it...See? It makes me look sophisticated.)

This book started an obsession for me which will propably not be done until the moment SK decides to finish the series and then I'll be re-reading and re-reading it again until each and every line in the books.

PS. This one isn't my favorite in the series but it's high on the list.