Review: Eve of Darkness

Eve of Darkness

S.J. Day

Series or Stand Alone: Marked series, book one

Release Date: April 2009

Publisher: Tor

Pages: 344

Author Site: http://www.sjday.net/

My Rating: 5/5

Source: Purchased
 

Synopsis:

[from goodreads.com]

 
Cursed by God, hunted by demons, desired by Cain and Abel... All in a day's work.

For Evangeline Hollis, a long ago fling with a bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks just became a disaster of biblical proportions. One night with a leather-clad man of mystery has led to a divine punishment: the Mark of Cain.

Thrust into a world where sinners are drafted into service to kill demons, Eve's learning curve is short. A longtime agnostic, she begrudgingly maneuvers through a celestial bureaucracy where she is a valuable but ill-treated pawn. She's also become the latest point of contention in the oldest case of sibling rivalry in history...

But she'll worry about all that later. Right now she's more concerned with learning to kill while staying alive. And saving the soul she'd never believed she had.

Review:

EVE OF DARKNESS has been on my shelf for a while and I haven’t had the chance to get to it until now. I wish I had gotten to it sooner because I enjoyed it a lot! I’ll definitely be getting book two and three at the same time when I go book shopping again.

Life is definitely not easy for Evangeline “Eve” Hollis. The hunky bad boy that took her virginity ten year ago has decided to come back into her life. And now his drop-dead-gorgeous of a brother has Marked Eve and thrust her into a demon-battling life she wanted no part of. Not to mention that said hot brothers are none other than long-time sibling rivals Cain and Abel. Currently known as Alec Cain and Reed Abel the two of them work directly under God and the archangels in the battle between good and evil.

Eve is definitely a great heroine. Talented, independent, intelligent, and beautiful Eve is temptation to the brothers and I can see why. She’s also half-asian which is definitely a unique thing in the urban-fantasy/paranormal-romance world. Usually characters are mixed with some non-human ingredient i.e. vampire, werewolf, witch… But having a fully human character with a mixture of two different countries/cultures/ethnicities was so nice to see. That and the fact that I’m half-asian myself, w00t! w00t!

I enjoyed the steamy sex scenes…even the crazy one in the stairwell involving Eve and Reed. A little wacky but totally hot!! The dialogue was filled with snarky/sarcastic wit and I enjoyed seeing the relationship with Eve and the brothers develop. Alec is definitely her man and Eve is definitely his woman…however the love-triangle involving Reed is sooo fun to read!!

I also really liked S.J. Day’s world building. The battle between angels and demons is somewhat cliché but that’s not what Day has provided her readers with. Her spin and unique twists to the tale brought a lot to the paranormal world. I also enjoyed how EVE OF DARKNESS started out; a little backwards. The first chapter drops the reader right into the action of Eve’s life and then the remaining part of the novel is six weeks’ worth of back-story that explains what the hell happened to Eve.

So I say go read EVE OF DARKNESS if you haven't already!! It’s fun, sexy, and has a lot of potential to be an awesome series. However, I did learn recently that S.J. Day is switching publishers and it looks like the Marked series has no more immediate additions which seriously sucks *tear* But in the meantime I’ll be finishing out the books that are already out there and hopefully by then some magic will happen in the world and S.J. Day will add a new novel to Eve’s world =)