DARKEST LIES

Gena Showalter captivates her audience once again with Darkest Lies.  This installment to her Lords of the Underworld focuses on Gideon: Keeper of Lies.  We meet him throughout various of the other novels interacting with the other Lords.  In this novel he tries to find the truth behind Scarlet's accusations that they were married (Scarlet is also the keeper of Nightmares).  Doing this, he learns more than just the truth, but is it something he wanted to know?  The story is weaved with other Lords with a secret quest with Amum (Secrets), Aeron (formerly Wrath), and William (Not a Lord but still important), as well Galen (Hope) whom appears in every novel.  There is also a dash of Strider (Defeat)

Showalter does an excellent job at making her characters come to life.  Throughout the novel she does not drop the characteristic that he needs to speak solely in lies or else he will be in excruciating pain.  Reading through the dialog an Gideon speak does take time to get used to as you have to read it as opposite of what he means; though she does have a translation sometimes making it easier to understand.   Gideon has been one of my favorite Lords for this reason.  It takes him have more compassion and loneliness as some don't understand when he says things such as 'You are ugly" he means the exact opposite.  Lucky for him Scarlet understands, sometimes.

Gena has the ability to pull you into the story.  It is something different with Pandora's box and the demons within. But with this novel, the various threads of plot weaving together seems to be a bit much and almost takes the focus away from Gideon and Scarlet's storyline.  I enjoy each of the characters Scarlet is the fireball I wish I could be, but with so much focus on other development it seems their development as individual characters and as a couple took a backseat in this novel.  The other novels in the series didn't seem to pull on the use of the other Lords as much as this one.  I have to wonder why?  Regardless, I enjoyed the story and want to see more from this couple and look forward to reading other books in this series.

There is a good reason why this is the sixth book in the series and not the first or second.  Having to keep up with Gideon's demon can be difficult and turn people away if they are new comers to the story, but after reading about Gideon for 5 other books before entering his story makes it easier to understand this poor man's situation.


Pros: Great story, great characters to love as well as hate
Cons: Too much of other stories weaving into main storyline

Bottomline: Shouldn't be the first novel of the series you read.  Read others first in order to properly appreciate Gideon.

Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5