I love this anthology. I've read other books by these authors before, so I was happy to find an antho with all three of them in it.

'The Darkest Angel' by Gena Showalter

Even though this short story doesn’t feature a romance between one of the Lords of the Underworld and a love interest, it’s one of my favorites in the LOTU series. Lysander, an elite warrior angel who’s quickly becoming obsessed with Bianka Skyhawk, abducts her and imprisons her in his home, which is a magical cloud up in the heavens. Bianca is a fierce Harpy with a soft side—you really gotta look for that soft side—and she makes life hell for her captor. Their arguments and her seduction of Lysander are both hilarious and so sexy. The best scene is when she abducts Paris, the demon of the keeper of Promiscuity, and forces him to wrestle Lysander in a pool of cherry-scented oil. So hot and funny! Anyway, I love their romance, their need for one another and the emotions both of them are trying to figure out. He’s a goody-goody angel, she’s the great-granddaughter of Lucifer, it’s not gonna work. Right?
As with all the LOTU books, we see the gang in the Budapest during Gwen and Sabin’s wedding. I love that this series doesn’t just focus on the main couple, but draws in everyone of importance.
I wished the story was longer just because I love Lysander (even though I know what he has to do to Aeron, the keeper of Wrath, in the next full length novel—The Darkest Passion). Although I’m crazy about these demons and prefer them to the other species in the series, I really like the introduction of angels and Harpies, and that everyone is working together and forming friendships and alliances. The LOTU universe seems to be getting bigger, and that’s definitely two thumbs up.
5 Stars

‘Love Me to Death’ by Maggie Shayne

Teenage David and his four best friends purposely set a house fire that accidentally cost a young girl her life. Now, twenty two years later, the five men are still full of guilt, but they’re doing their best to live their lives. They start seeing Sierra, the girl who died, and believe her ghost has come back for revenge.
Twenty two year old Sara grew up as an orphan and she’s recently had some very strange, vivid dreams. In search of answers, she meets David and the attraction is instant for both of them. As they unravel the mystery of Sara and David’s shared dreams, Sierra’s death and the disappearance of Sierra’s mom, someone from Sierra’s past comes back to stop Sara and David from finding out the truth.
Despite the age difference, Sara and David had a lot of chemistry and fit well together. They were very likable characters.
4 Stars

‘Lady of the Nile’ by Susan Krinard

Though I liked the set up, I found the story a little confusing.
Set in the 1890s, an eccentric British duchess believes she is the reincarnation of an ancient Egyptian princess named Tameri. The duchess is also named Tameri. The duchess believes the princess sacrificed herself to the goddess Aset thousands of years ago, and now she (as the duchess) must do the same.
Leo is a scholar and an adventurer who’s drawn to Tameri (as the duchess), but he doesn’t believe she’s the reincarnated princess. As they spend more time together, he slowly learns he’s been reincarnated from Maahes, an ancient Egyptian soldier who loved Princess Tameri and who sacrificed himself to the god Asar.
Leo/Maahes/Asar and Tameri/Tameri/Aset were all the same person, but their multiple names were used interchangeably. While I liked Leo and found his motivation to help the duchess honorable, the duchess was too trusting, especially of the villain whom she thought was a friend.
3 Stars

Book Overall - 4 Stars

Disclaimer – I bought this book for my own enjoyment. I am not paid or compensated in any way, shape or form for this honest review. I will not change or alter this review for any reason unless at my discretion. ( )

The Darkest Angel by Gena Showalter - 4
Lysander is tempted by Bianka and kidnaps her in order to train her to be respectable. Bianka loves tormenting and teasing him.
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Loved the first 2 stories, Lords of the Underworld is one of my favorite series. The 3rd story was just meh. ( )

The Darkest Angel
I have been feinding for a 'Lords' story for awhile now, and I definitely was not disappointed. Gena Showalter has a very specific writing style, I could recognize it even without knowing she wrote it, and that's an awesome thing, in my opinion. I loved this story, it was sweet, sizzling hot and just cute. I am glad Gena Showalter is expanding her characters as well...we now have sexy angels, and probably more demons to play with. Great story, loved the entire thing. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Love Me To Death
This was the first time I had read anything by Maggi Shayne. I think I definitely found a new author to read, this story was great. It wasn't easily predictable and was incredibly sexy and drawing, I was in for the long haul from page one. The characters were well developed for such a short story and I can't wait to read the series that is related to it, when the author starts putting them out.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Lady of the Nile
This was a short sweet and spicy historical/paranormal-ish romance story. I quite liked it, I really like Leo's character, even if he is a bit stubborn for his own good. I liked these two together as well. I will have to find more books by Susan Krinard. I like her writing style.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ( )

This is a collection of three short stories. Overall, the only really good one was Gena Showalter’s.

The Darkest Angel by Gena Showalter is up first. This story takes place in her Lords of the Underworld series. It doesn’t have much to do with the Lords though. They mostly just had some cameos with a bit of explanation of what has happened to them in previous books. In fact, eliminating their presence in the story probably would have made it flow together better.

The actual plot follows an angel, Lysander, who falls in love with a harpy named Bianka. Lysander feels an attraction to Bianka that he has never felt before. This leads him to believe that she is his temptation to fall. So he kidnaps her with the intention of turning her away from the dark side. However, Bianka has no intention of letting an overbearing angel change her. So she does everything in her power to annoy the crap out of him until he decides to release her.

One thing that I really disliked about this story was how the conflict of Lysander being ashamed of Bianka was resolved. It came out of nowhere. We never saw any evidence in the rest of the story to support the turning point that Showalter inserts near the end. It made the ending feel rushed and like a cop-out. All in all though, I really enjoyed this story. The best part is how seamlessly Showalter merges Greek and Angel mythology together. Her world building for her angels was interesting and I only wish we could’ve explored that more.
Individual rating: 4/5

Love Me to Death by Maggie Shayne is up next and it was by far the worst out of the three. This one bored me to death. It started off like a Stephen King story where a group of grown men get back together in the small town where something traumatizing happened to them as teens. That traumatizing event is that in high school they accidently burnt down a building resulting in a girl their age being killed. But now they’ve all been visited by the dead girl who each believes is her ghost out for revenge. If this was a King story the ghost would really be after them and the rest of the story would read like It. However this is a romance, so really it’s the reincarnation of the girl the boys killed. She’s been having dreams about her past life and comes to the small town for answers. Through doing this, she scares the crap out of the men and accidents occur until the hero of the story chases her down and demands answers. This story just really did not hold my attention at all. The characters were dull and the plot was extremely rushed. I have the feeling this could have been a much better full length story. Where Shayne would have had time to flesh out the characters and take her time drawing out the suspense of the mystery and ghost story.
Individual rating: 2

Lady of the Nile by Susan Krinard is the last story in the series. It wasn’t bad, but it just felt out of place in this anthology. It’s a historical paranormal romance. Lady Tameri believes she’s the reincarnation of an ancient Egyptian princess. Leo, an archeologist, is hell bent on saving her from her delusions. Leo’s reasoning for sticking his nose in Tameri’s business is that he had a relative who had similar delusions to Tameri who killed himself after being unable to convince anyone of his past life. Believing that he can save Tameri from that same fate, he sets out to help her under the guise of his willingness to be convinced that she really is an Egyptian Princess. This was a pretty smooth story. Krinard uses Egyptian mythology fairly well throughout and the characters are interesting. There’s also an interesting antagonist who keeps things from getting dull.
Individual rating: 3/5
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