D.T. Dyllin is a Bestselling Author who writes both New Adult and Adult Romance. She is a member of the RWA (Romance Writers of America) and also her local chapter, the MCRW (Music City Romance Writers).
D.T. was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Black & Gold for life, baby!) She now lives in Nashville, Tennessee with her husband and two spoiled GSDs.
Taste of Darkness
(Darkness, #2)
By: Katie Reus
Publisher: Self-Published
Published: July 24, 2014
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Rating:
He spent more than a thousand years imprisoned in hell…
Drake is an ancient dragon shifter, one of the most powerful beings in existence, but a millennium trapped in utter darkness has left him ill-equipped for modern society. If it wasn’t for Victoria, the sweet female brave enough to befriend him, he’d be lost. She’s smart and gorgeous and everything he never dared dream of during his years of agonizing loneliness. He may not have anything to offer her, but one thing he knows for sure: he’d die to keep her safe.
Only to fall into the heaven of her touch.
Victoria is a wolf shifter, healer of the Stavros pack. She’s seen a lot, but she’s never met anybody quite like Drake, the fiery, fascinating shifter who can blaze through the skies unseen by mere mortals. He’s lost, dangerous, and the last male she should fall in love with, but the more time she spends helping him navigate modern life, the deeper—and hotter—their connection becomes. She’s thrilled when they finally locate his family, but reuniting with his people plunges them both into unimaginable danger. It’s a race against the clock trying to figure out who wants them dead and who they can trust, especially when the threat is closer than they ever imagined.
Even though this storyline focuses on two different characters from the last book, you really need to read them in succession. When I started reading this one I felt like I was missing something. The characters seemed way too familiar with each other and there seemed to be some time gap in what was going on for the book to just be starting. So I reread the ending from Darkness Awakened and refreshed my memory of how these two characters met. Then afterwards I was able to jump right in the story with no problem.
Drake was a very interesting character. Yeah, he’s all macho Alpha, he is a dragon after all, but he’s way out of his element in the modern world and leans on Victoria and others for help when it comes to the unknown, like driving. You see, when Drake was a little boy he was sacrificed and sent to the depths of hell where he spent over a thousand years trying to survive. That is, until he escapes and finds himself protected by the Stavros wolf pack. So imagine everything that’s changed in the last thousand years. It’s pretty safe to say that Drake has a lot to learn about the new world. He grew up in hell and doesn’t really have the lifetime experience in dealing with people. So he tends to be a bit gruff when interacting with others. He also has no memory of who he was before his time in Hell. So over time, little things trigger his memory, slowly revealing who he was as well as snippets of his gruesome time in Hell.
I do have a couple of complains and one was ironically Drake himself. I felt that for someone who hadn’t grown up in the modern world, he sure did acclimate fast. For instance, my mom has had a cellphone for almost 10 years now. That woman just learned how to text. When she came out to visit a few months back she tried telling me that her phone only came with one ringtone, the carriers signature tune. Knowing that wasn’t right I, within seconds, changed her ringtone to some obnoxious DJ BLAST tune. It took her a couple of weeks to figure out how to get rid of it, and I think she even enlisted the help of someone. So considering that Drake’s only been in our world for four months, I’m not buying that he’s able to pick up on our technology so fast. Maybe had I seen the transition period in those first 4 months that would’ve been different, but we are presented with the Drake who’s been around for 4 months and I wasn’t a fan of the fact that homeboy was texting like it’s cool.
My other issue was that I felt like there were way too many POV’s going on. I’m totally fine with getting a couple extra POV’s mixed in pertaining to either the villain or upcoming highlighted characters but this one was all over the place. I honestly don’t know who the next book will be about because there was just so many things going on at once. I would have liked it to focus a bit more on the main characters and their story and not try to branch out twenty different ways.
Since Drake was sent to Hell as a little boy, he was never told about the birds and the bees. Let alone did anything with a female. Victoria’s been coddled and babied since she was adopted into the pack. So she never really had the opportunity to date. So the fact that these two were starting out on equal ground was pretty interesting. It’s not too often that you have two older characters who are both virgins. It was a nice change of pace.
The romance isn’t the only thing this book has to offer. There are some pretty awesome fight scenes as well. Since whoever put Drake in hell is still out there, there are some moments where things get a little bloody. You have to figure that Dragons don’t fight with fists or weapons. So there are a lot of scenes where Drake chomps onto a neck and rips the head from the body or incinerates the person with his fire breath. That may be a turn off to some, but he’s a dragon. If he went around throwing glitter on everyone it wouldn’t be very threatening. And dragons are huge threatening creatures that would make Godzilla pee in his non-existent reptilian pants.
In the end, this is a great paranormal romance series. I’ve loved just about every book of Katie’s that I’ve read. This one started out strong for me but once everyone started butting in with their POV’s I got a little distracted and lost sight of the story at hand. It was still highly enjoyable though. I will definitely be waiting for the next book to come out.
“The predator inside him took over, gaining a stronger foothold. He must do this to survive. No weakness. Ever. The boy inside him cried out for his mother, begging her to find him, to save him.
But she never came.”
Previous reviews from Darkness
Darkness Awakened
Songbird
(Sinclair, #1)
By: Jaymin Eve
Publisher: Self-Published
Published: July 13, 2014
Genre: New Adult Romance
It took many years but finally Melodee Lee is in control of her life. The twenty-three year old trusts no one, and spends her time nomadically wandering with the underground cage fighting scene. Her innocent looks are an asset and she utilizes them to their fullest extent. Fighting is how she makes her money and she’s damn good at it. Yeah, sometimes she’s lonely, but her set-up guarantees no one screws with her and she doesn’t have to think about the ten ways she knows how to kill a man. Of course, that was before she met the Sinclairs.
Nathan Sinclair; one of the four brothers that dominate the city of Syracuse. Nathan’s a rising basketball star, set to be signed by the NBA and despite the fact his slam-dunk nickname was earned both on and off the court, he’s decided that it’s time for a break. He’s over the drama of college women.
An accident, a baby and unforgettable circumstances bring these two people together when their worlds should never have collided. And the end result have both of them questioning their lives and the choices they’ve made to be happy.
Melodee is an underground cage fighter who trusts no one. She moves around a lot and doesn’t make any connections with people. She grew up in the foster system and learned real quick that the fighting skills her deranged parents (who were also assassins) gave her were useful when dealing with one crappy foster home after another. Now an adult, she uses those same skills to make money and win fights. After every fight she moves to a new location to get away which is how she ends up in Syracuse and in Nathan’s path.
I thought for sure I’d love this one. I mean, how many times have you read about a female cage fighter? They’re always males. So that was really intreging. Also, Nathan is supposed to be a hot shot basketball player at SU as well as a local celebrity in Syracuse. Which by the way is where I was born and raised. So… the fact that this takes place in my hometown, even cooler. However, this story fell flat with me. It started off strong with Melodee fighting in the cage and then afterwards getting on a bus and winding up in Syracuse. She seemed really bad-ass and I was all in. Then one of her apartment neighbors spots her walking in a snowstorm from the grocery store and insists that he gives her a ride home, but first needs to make a stop at his friends house (Nathan’s) to drop off some stuff. Now, for someone who is a loner and doesn’t trust people, she got into the car, but whatever I can deal. But when they get into a fatal accident killing her neighbor and the driver of the other vehicle, leaving Melodee and the woman’s baby the sole survivors things started changing. Nathan hears the crash from his place, goes out to investigate and that’s where he and Melodee meet up. Just about the entire inner dialogue of both parties is about how hot the other one is. Nathan shows very little to no grief over his friend’s passing. Hell, at one point they are wrestling in his cabin after the accident laughing and having a good ol time. Now, I get that the snowstorm knocked down power lines and there’s no cell service to call and report the accident but jeesh, show some emotion. Melodee I could see not being sad, she didn’t know the guy, but Nathan didn’t really care that his lifetime friend was dead, body frozen in a vehicle by his house. Not to mention that when Child Services shows up the next day to take the baby to a foster home, all Nathan has to do is say his name and that he and Melodee want to keep the baby and *BAM* the woman walks off in agreement and Nathan and Melodee are the new proud foster parents of an infant. …. WHAT?! Apparently if your father is a Senator and you play in college basketball, you’re totally fit to be a parent. Screw background checks or interviews, nope… if you want that snotty nosed infant, you can have it! Nope, not buying it.
At about halfway through I stopped reading. It went from being a great story with new and exciting characters to totally changing to a sweet and sappy love story that I’ve read 100 times before. Except those stories made sense and flowed together, this one was all over the place and just sort of made stuff up as it went along. I wish Melodee showed more of her f*ck-off personality throughout the story. Instead she not only jumps Nathan’s bones but tells him and his brother about the torture she endured. And for someone who keeps to themself, that was just too out of left field. I just couldn’t get into the story or connect with the flippant nature of the characters.
“More often than not the best people were the ones with the rough edges. Life had tried to chip away at them, but they still carried on.”
E-Day
(M-Day, #1)
By: DT Dyllin
Publisher: Tik Tok Press
Published: Aug 10, 2014
Genre: Dystopian Erotic Romance
Rating:
M-Day was the dawn of a brand new harsher world. A world where old lives could be left behind and secrets buried for good. At least that’s exactly what Tammie Miles had planned. But even with her new identity as Evo, she discovers that your past is never far. When a man from her old life tracks her down, will she risk everything to keep her secrets? Or will she finally learn that maybe even she can love the right man?
Kat Scratched
By: D.T. Dyllin
Publisher: Tic Tok Press
Published: May 3, 2014
Genre: Paranormal Erotic Romance
Rating:
It’s tough being a cat in a dog eat dog world. Something that Katrina Walker learned the hard way being a were-cat raised by a pack of werewolves. And after her taboo love affair with the future Alpha is discovered, Kat has no choice but to leave the only home and man she’s ever loved behind for good. Or so she thought…
Seven years later Kat is forced to return to pack lands and the man she left behind. But Jason Benson has changed, and so has she. Will she find her way back into the arms of her first love, or will James, the mysterious were-cat wriggle his way into her heart?
Thoughtless
(Thoughtless, #1)
By: SC Stephens
Publisher: Self-Published
Published: June 11, 2011
Genre: New Adult Romance
Rating:
For almost two years now, Kiera’s boyfriend, Denny, has been everything she’s ever wanted: loving, tender and endlessly devoted to her. When they head off to a new city to start their lives together, Denny at his dream job and Kiera at a top-notch university, everything seems perfect. Then an unforeseen obligation forces the happy couple apart.
Feeling lonely, confused, and in need of comfort, Kiera turns to an unexpected source—a local rock star named Kellan Kyle. At first, he’s purely a friend that she can lean on, but as her loneliness grows, so does their relationship. And then one night everything changes…and none of them will ever be the same.
This is a tough book to rate. This review is more than likely going to sound more like a rant but I just can’t help it. At first I thought this book was going to be 5 stars but it quickly left a sour taste in my mouth. I hated Kiera and Kellan. To the point where I wanted to stop reading… but I just couldn’t seem to put the book down.
You see, Kiera moves away from family and friends to be with her boyfriend. She transfers school, gets a job and starts settling down with her new life. But one day Denny gets a great opportunity at his internship, he gets to travel from WA to AZ for a huge project but the catch is, he will be gone for a couple of months. At first, Kiera misses him terribly and Kellan is such a sweetheart and tries to cheer her up. He takes her to school, work, watches movies with her, they really become close. In fact, I started to get a little bit uncomfortable with how close. Then one day Denny drops a big bomb on Keira’s lap. He’s been offered the job in Arizona! Which, for an intern as green as he is, is a humungous opportunity. What does Keira do? She flips out, breaks up with him and screws Kellan. Which okay fine, they were technically broken up, but when Denny turns down the job for Kiera, thus losing his internship and comes home, she goes right back to Denny while still being “friendly” with Kellan.
I’m sorry but I don’t condone cheating. I’m a military wife and I’ve gone months without humping some hot guy. We were only dating a year when he went off to a 3 month bootcamp. I remember being just like Keira, I was torn apart that first day. I just went home and cried all day. My mom even took me up to the Adirondacks to have a girls day and cheer me up. So I understand her heart break over that initial 2 month separation, although she could talk to him whenever she wanted whereas I got maybe 2 letters a week from him and that was it. But I just couldn’t get behind every single thing that happens afterwards. I mean, there were times when I literally smacked my forehead and said “oh God, no, don’t do that.” when she’d leave Denny in BED and sneak across the hall to Kellan’s room and then proceed to screw him. I just couldn’t take it.
However, for some reason, I just couldn’t seem to put this book down. I incessantly read it until I was finished and stayed up until the early morning to get to the end. I love the idea of the story but I just wish there wasn’t so much cheating in it.
“I want to be someone’s everything. I want fire and passion, and love that’s returned, equally. I want to be someone’s heart.”
Darkness Bound
(Night Prowler, #5)
By: JT Geissinger
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Published: June 24, 2014
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Rating:
Tough, smart, and seriously ambitious, reporter Jacqueline “Jack” Dolan despises the secretive clan of shape-shifters known as the Ikati—and has become determined to destroy them. After she writes an editorial arguing for their extermination and turns public opinion against them, the Ikati vow to fight back. They plot to send one of their own to seduce the reporter, then blackmail her into writing a retraction.
Women practically fall at the feet of hulking, handsome Hawk Luna, and Hawk relishes the idea of conquering and destroying the fiery redhead who’s caused so much trouble for his kind. The last thing he expects is to develop real feelings for her, but their liaison awakens a hunger in him that he cannot deny. He kidnaps Jack and brings her to his Amazon jungle colony, but the two lovers are soon embroiled in deadly colony politics and threatened by a looming global species war.
As the danger around them grows closer, Jack and Hawk’s forbidden passion may build a bridge between two ancient enemies—or cost them both their lives.
