Sunday, 20 September 2015

Flora Reviews... Dark Dreams (Progeny of Sin) By Dawn Treadway and Aaron Speca




Dark Dreams (Progeny of Sin) by Dawn Treadway and Aaron Speca

Read: 5th – 17th September 2015
Format: Kindle
My Overall Goodreads Rating:  3.5 Stars

...So what’s this book about?
This is a paranormal romance novel featuring an empathic human female, a muscle-bound hunk of a Djinn and various other species of daemons with three “all-knowing” goddesses thrown in to the mix. ;-) 
The blurb says:

The Devil wants his due … The Daemon wants his out … and Jade just wants it all to be over. You don't always get what you want.
Jade Shear is an ordinary girl with an extraordinary ability that’s literally about to send her to Hell. When Daemons discover Jade’s power to read and manipulate others true feelings, they force her to assist with the rescue of their sibling; thrusting her from her everyday normality deep into the Underworld with the tall, dark and deliciously demonic Nias Hu’dor assigned as her guide.
All Nias wants is to live out his life without being involved with anyone else. No more emotion, no more connections, especially to pain in the ass humans. But when he sees Jade twisting a long curl of her wild red hair, and showing off the most amazing backside he’s ever been privy to; Nias just knew he was staring at a world of trouble. How could his family have enlisted him to obtain this girl’s help to traverse Sheol?
This dark paranormal romance takes you from Jade’s everyday existence into the world of the Djinn Sentry; an army of demonic solders determined to protect the human race; and then plummets you straight down into the seething malevolent Underworld where a multi-levelled caste system of Shaitan and the Devil himself welcome you.

As I understand it, Ms Treadway and Mr Speca are busy writing the next book in the Progeny of Sin series to be published by HarperImpulseRomance sometime in the future.

I was lucky enough to receive a digital version of this book for free from the publishers via Netgally.com in exchange for an honest review.


  
...So, what did I like about it?
I really liked the premise of this book; an ordinary (ish) girl thrown into an extraordinary adventure, who finds romance and the value of her own gumption along the way.
I quickly fell in love with our main character Jade; she was intelligent, with a heart breaking fragility caused by her gift’s (curse) effect on her relationship with others around her but she had courageousness I greatly admired; going into situations to help others despite her own fears.
I used Wikipedia when the story introduced a new species and appreciated the fact that all the creatures of Sheol can be found in actual mythology; I think that added a further dimension to the world-building and gave it an edge of reality that I liked.
I found myself gripped at times, unable to read fast enough, completely engrossed in this tale, enjoying both the evolving relationship between Jade and Nias, the pace, twists and turns of the adventure they were on and the development of the background story arc.

...So, ummm, was there anything I disliked about it?

Ms Treadway has mentioned online that she had read both Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy” and John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” and loosely based her levels of Sheol on their ideas. I haven’t read either of these classics and the faith that I live by does not feature a “hell when your soul goes to be eternally punished for a perceived sin” so at times I found this aspect of the story confusing and a little frustrating. However, after a while I decided to view this aspect as I would any other fantasy created world and just accept it as a part of the world-building of this particular story and go with the flow!

...So, basically what I’m saying is...
I like this book; you’ve got two strong main characters but both have soft, warm hearts, a passionate blossoming romance (with both teasing sexual tension as well as graphic sexy scenes this is not a YA tale) and a battle between good and evil. What more do you want from a paranormal romance?! I’m looking forward to seeing where the authors take the story next.

So, have I sparked an interested for Dark Dreams (Progeny of Sin) in you? Just click on the links below and check out the book yourself.

No comments:

Post a Comment