The Dark Ones

Well, now I get it. Rachel Van Dyken has been on my radar for a little while. I knew she wrote romance but I heard that she only wrote clean romance. There is nothing wrong with clean romance, but I like a bit of sizzle in my reads. When I mentioned to a few friends that I heard she was clean, the responses ranged from – LOL, Hmm…maybe there might be one or two that were clean, and lastly…her books have enough connection between the characters that you don’t need to see them in the bedroom. So…my interest was piqued and I put her to the test.Firstly …where do I start? She has written A LOT. There were contemporary romance, historical romance and paranormal romance. I was in the mood for Paranormal so The Dark Ones was the first cab off the rank. Not a bad start to be honest.Wow, The Dark Ones really packed a punch. I was sucked into this story from the beginning until the very end. Vampires, werewolves, sirens, demons, archangels and the dark ones, all come together and we see how they live with humans.Genesis is human and has been groomed to serve the immortals. She knew all along that she could be called up to serve them and was under the impression that her role would involve teaching immortal children modern ways. Her grooming and teaching were mainly from her horrible mother who belittled her and made her feel ugly and useless. Imagine her surprise when she is called up to do her duty and finds out that everything she has learnt is a lie. She meets The Dark One who is the King of the Immortals and he takes a fancy to her almost immediately. NOT A GOOD THING AT ALL!! She also meets some of the Elder Immortals that know how much danger she’d be in if The Dark One, Cassius, actually claimed/marked her. They spirit her away and try to hide her from Cassius.Ethan a vampire elder is attracted to Genesis and has to claim/mark/mate with her to get her out of Cassius’s clutches. With his friends, Mason (werewolf elder) and Alex and Stephanie (siren elders) they manage to protect her.The mating of Ethan and Genesis isn’t smooth and loving. Ethan has a history that made him weary of mating and falling in love. Genesis because of her upbringing thinks his rejection is based on her ugliness and inferiority. Their journey together to find happiness was great and I liked seeing them face and conquer their obstacles together.The Dark Ones is full of intrigue and mystery. I was interested to see how all the immortals live and work together. Their secrets must be kept, yet they live relatively normal lives. They work, shop, eat and drink like humans, but some of them need a little more to keep them in top form. While I was mostly interested in Ethan and Genesis, I couldn’t help but be intrigued with Cassius, Mason, Alex and Stephanie too.There were some intimate scenes which definitely had just the right amount of heat to tick the right boxes for me and showed the connection between Ethan and Genesis. They were not overdone or hardcore, just the right amount of sexy to get my heart pumping.Well now that I’ve finished my first Rachel Van Dyken, I can definitely say that it won’t be my last. Her writing style is smooth and easy to follow. I felt connected to the characters she created and I wanted to know more about the supporting ones. Rachel doesn’t write overly descriptive or too much inner-monologue which is a HUGE plus for me. It kept the pace and storyline consistent and interesting.Next up, Untouchable Darkness and finding out how Cassius is dealing being…HUMAN!!

I’m a fan of the other Rachel Van Dyken books I’ve read (Eagle Elite and Consequence series) and I do enjoy a good paranormal romance story so I was excited to see that she was releasing a paranormal book of her own! And I have to say, I thought it was a good start to the new series. I don’t know how many books she’s planning in this series, but I think there’s a lot of potential and quite a lot of story to tell here. At times it was a little tricky trying to keep up with everything that was going on because there was a lot of new information thrown at us, but I think that’s too be expected with a new series. But I liked the spin on the paranormal/supernatural world that she put on it and I really loved the characters. There was enough romance and enough action to make you want to keep turning pages and the epilogue really made me excited for the next book (this isn’t a cliffhanger but the epilogue sets up the circumstances for the main characters in the second book).So the premise of the book is that Genesis is a human who has spent her entire life learning the ways of the immortal world in preparation for the chance that her number is called and she has to go serve them. She was under the impression that if her number was called she would go and be a teacher for the immortal’s children, teaching them about technology and other aspects of modern life. She was also conditioned to think that she was ugly and was nothing in the eyes of an immortal. When her number is called she realizes just how wrong all of her teachings were. So while she knew about the existence of immortals, there was still that shock factor of her learning what she really meant to them and what was at stake for the all of the immortals with her presence. Upon reporting for duty, if you will, she is marked by Cassius a Dark One but sensing her importance for the prophesy, vampire Ethan and his friends whisk her away and he marks her for himself. Thus ensues the fight between good and evil as all sides try to use Genesis to try to fulfill the prophesy. You see, for years now immortal’s human mates have been dying and it is believed that a human will be called that will help restore the balance that will allow immortals to grant their human mates immortality as well. It was a good concept and for the most part made sense, but like I said there were parts where I could have benefitted from a little more backstory or explanation but maybe that’ll come more in future books.I liked the relationship between Genesis and Ethan, of course it was pretty much insta-love, but given Ethan’s history I could see how he could fall for her but Genesis seemed to change her tune quite quickly. But if you chalk it up to the bond between mates I guess it’s not that far-fetched. I’ve always enjoyed Rachel Van Dyken’s characters and this was no exception. Aside from Genesis and Ethan, I loved Alex’s comic relief, Mason’s kindness and Stephanie’s friendship with Genesis. I even ended up liking Cassius by the end. I liked that this book was a mash up of all sorts of immortals, fallen angels, vampires, werewolves, sirens and archangels. Like I said I think there’s a lot of potential here and I look forward to seeing what else this series has in store in future books!

The writing is terrible! There's plot holes, the characters are immature etc This is just not a good read! The writing isn't very clear, there was no detail given to create scenes, or to give depth to the character's. It felt very lacking in atmosphere. I just got the feeling through the whole story that the writing was immature, lacking in sophistication and professionalism. The character's, even the immortals who are supposed to be hundreds of years old, spoke so immaturely and acted so childishly too. The main character Genesis must have said she was going to die at least a dozen times before I even got 15% of the way in to the book, so annoying. And I even knew by only 16% that Stephanie was likely going to be a baddie, as soon as Ethane mentions he only trusts Mason and Alex, even though Steph was the only other person supposed to be apart of this pact they all had to keep Cassius away.But the biggest issues were one, the immaturity, all the roaring and shouting and silly stupid back and forth arguing. I gave up at around 25%, I just couldn't take anymore! And two, all the missing information. There were huge gaps everywhere in this story, something is stated by the author but she doesn't go on to elaborate on it, leaving the reader to conger up the meaning in the statement for themselves. Which is really annoying because honestly, it could be any number of things. For example,1. Why would Mason have to kill Genesis if she doesn't make it through her transition? Surely her not making it through her transition in itself means that the transition will kill her! So Mason wouldn't have to kill her!2. Is it just females from her family that are 'called'? Or is all of humanity aware of the immortals or just a select few?3. Are they all taught by their parents that they are ugly, that they are nothing, in preparation for being summoned by the dark ones?4. If male immortals organs shut down after the bonding with their mate and they need their mate for sustenance and nutrition to survive, then why are Ethan and Mason not dead, if their mates are dead?5. If it has been 50 years since the last human was called, then why is Genesis' mother so horrible to teach Genesis as she does? Surely if only one human is called and it has been over 50 years since it has happened, then wouldn't time fade the impact of what 'a call' would mean? It's just weird that she would teach her daughter from birth that she is ugly, and nothing, to cause her such heartache, all for something that practically never happens!6. Why do humans die if an immortal leaves them? In the very first chapter Genesis is thinking, 'The dark ones have such heightened emotions, that when they abandon their human, the human dies'. Okay, what does the dark ones having such strong emotions have to do with the human dying? How/why does it make their hearts explode as stated? Do the humans become addicted to these heightened emotions of the dark ones? How? The details aren't given!7. Why do immortals need to make a phone call to summon the human? When did the phone calls for this summoning of humans all start and why?All these questions are unanswered in the story. The part where Mason runs out off the room and howls, came off comical, not sad at all, because there is no detail given to the scene or his pain. It was more like reading about a cartoon dog than a werewolf. The plot was so weak and lacking. This was basically like a bunch of spoilt adolescent brats had gathered together to annoy each other. Just terrible.

Somehow I was looking forward to read this book.It started interesting but it faded away.The idea is good, I missed more action, those are immortals but there are whiny and come over pretty weak, with no special powers. Sure the characters are funny, dialogue wise. But the storyline overall is on some parts a bit confusing, like that immortals are not allowed to get intimate with humans? But it is actually happened or not?Then:Dark Ones had such heightened emotions, when they abandoned a human out of boredom or something else trivial, it killed the human?What has the emotional part to do with that?It sounds a bit silly to me.What I missed most are more conversations as well more information where they live, more involvement with other humans. The visit to her mother was somehow very boring, I thought that she really has something to say to her mother after all those years, but there was nothing.I really missed more action and involvement with others angels maybe or some kind of trouble with the humans to get more information what there do and what they takes care off, there was no insight on it.It could have been a great storyline, sorry to say that.

I enjoyed reading this story about Genesis, a human and Ethan, a vampire. Although I have read many books about vampires, werewolves and immortals, this one was different from what I am used to and I didn't quite understand everything that was going on. However, I think that after I read more from this author things will become clearer. I liked all the characters in the story including the secondary ones - Cassius, Alex, Mason and Stephanie. They were all different and had an important part to play in the tale. I loved seeing how Ethan gradually fell in love with Genesis even though she accepted her attraction to him much sooner and in the end they were both willing to sacrifice themself for the other. I will definitely read more from this author and would recommend this book to others who like this genre.

So it wasn't overall that great but the end was really bad. Overall I didn't really have anything against Genesis and Ethan they were fine although a bit underdeveloped but I really didn't like Stephanie and the ending of the book * Spoilers* I think it is horrible that Stephanie sacrificed Genesis and was willing to let her or Ethan die just because she wanted Cassius to love her, I think that makes her not just selfish but actually be immoral as she is willing sending people who were meant to be her friends to death. So I think it's horrible that everyone forgives her so easily and that she's not considered evil. Also her and Cassius's relationship is incest! Cassius and Aziel have the same farther making them half brothers, so Aziel's daughter, Stephanie, is Cassius's niece. Their relationship is incest.Also there are plot holes in the story. If Stephanie is a dark one then she should also find it hard to love like Cass and if she is a dark one shouldn't she be so powerful it can't be hidden easily. But the main plot hole is that when she was a dark one Stephanie literally gave Cassius her heart to save him, if they're both dark ones why didn't Cassius already have a heart, if they are the same thing they would have the same body parts.

At first this book really intrigued me for the first couple of chapters. You could feel amd taste genesis fear of the immortals amd the mystery behind it really got me.Then after that it was the usual insta mate love thing even though it was a resentful connection I believe so much could of been done to this story to flesh out the characters it had real potential for my yearning of a more complicated backstory. But definitely good for a light read.