Review: Into the Dark

Title: Into the Dark
Author: Gena Showalter
Page Count: 383 pages
Publisher: HQN
Genre: paranormal romance
Copy for review provided by netgalley.com in anticipation of an honest review

50 words or less: This is a companion book to the Lords of the Underworld series and features three stand-alone stories, bonus content, interviews, and series-related fun.

Into the Dark is one of those books that rounds out the original series more completely without necessarily adding anything new. This isn't a bad thing; rather, this is one of those books that can be an old stand-by when the time between regular series installments is dragging and it gets harder and harder to wait for a new one.

The short stories that start off this collection are easily my favorite part of the book; each one was unique and showed a facet of the setting of the Lords of the Underworld series that I hadn't really considered before. I was really rooting for Geryon and Kadence in The Darkest Fire as they tried unsuccessfully to cage the demons that cause so many problems in this series and try to fight their mutual attraction; the sass and sizzle between Atlas and Nike in The Darkest Prison made me want to dig out my mythology book and re-explore all those stories I'd since forgotten. The Amazon's Curse, while not a part of the Lords series, was excellent as well, and reminded me that I'm way behind in reading the other series that this author has going.

I didn't find the author interview or the character interviews as engrossing as I mainly was interested in this book for the bonus stories, but they were flip, easy reading that would make a car ride or long wait somewhere go by quickly this summer and were fun for the most part.

Do you have to read this book to continue understanding this series? No. As far as companion books go, though, this one is breezy and fun. Fans of the series will enjoy more of the snark that's present in the series; newcomers might want to read the regular novels first and then enjoy this book.

Overall Grade: B+

Buy in Print:



Buy for Kindle: