A review by lassarina
Dark Desires by Eve Silver
3.0
As a mystery, this works really well. As an homage to the Gothic tradition, it's solid. As a romance, I wavered between believing it and not. I think my problem was that it didn't seem like it could make up its mind whether Darcie was shaped by several traumatic experiences, or oddly untouched by them; she seemed to waver back and forth between a naive hope and belief, and an odd cynicism. The Gothic novel relies heavily on the mysteriousness and possible badness of the hero before revealing that all is well, and I think my awareness of that trope meant I gave Damien (and Darcie's opinion of him) more passes than I would have without that awareness, because goddamn, girl, run.
That said, it is really well constructed as a mystery and made me happy on that score, and also successfully half-convinced me that a random character was The Problem, although maybe that's a lifetime of suspicion from too much vampire LARP coming out. (If you're looking for a really good Gothic romance, though, look to the second book in this series, His Dark Kiss, because it's better.)
That said, it is really well constructed as a mystery and made me happy on that score, and also successfully half-convinced me that a random character was The Problem, although maybe that's a lifetime of suspicion from too much vampire LARP coming out. (If you're looking for a really good Gothic romance, though, look to the second book in this series, His Dark Kiss, because it's better.)