Dance with the Devil (Dark-Hunter Series, Book Seven): Sherrilyn Kenyon UPDATED

Here's another updated review!  You can find my original review from 2008 HERE.  My feelings about this book seem to have stayed the same.  I still find Zarek to be one of the most psychologically and emotionally complex characters of Kenyon's.  He truly does evolve on so many levels.  He starts off so animalistic and then you realize there's SO much you don't know about him.  At all.  You have NO idea what he has been through, what he has endured, and the demons that still haunt him even many centuries later.  There are so many nuances to his character that I don't feel as if I caught them all or even appreciated them to the degree I do now -- either this book is worth reading more than once, or I'm just a lot more mature in the last 10 years...could be both.

Astrid is a great counterpart to Zarek.  I will, however, say that I don't see much point to her blindness if she's just able to use Sasha to see.  For example, she held off looking at Zarek until he was conscious, but wouldn't it have been a hell of a lot easier to tend his wounds if she could see his back?  No one said she had to look at his face.  Then, when he was awake, that was the first thing she looked at...  Seems a bit pointless.  Unless the reason is so she can seem helpless to those she is judging and, in turn, see how those men treat someone they view as helpless.  This is something in which I can see some merit, but, if it is the real reason, it isn't explained well.

Thanatos is a good bad guy with nothing to lose, and this makes him all the more dangerous.  I was more than a little frustrated by Acheron's inability to help or keep an eye on his Dark-Hunters, the way in which Artemis is so flippant (though I suppose that's in character for her), and the degree to which Acheron went to hide things from Zarek.  Simi is also a point of contention for me.  I found her more annoying than funny -- like she's a parody or an inside joke with Kenyon and her friends and I just don't get it.  I love the idea of Acheron having a "daughter," just not her.  Her speech and obsession with barbecuing (and barbecue sauce) all really rub me the wrong way...  Maybe it's just me, though.  There were times when I felt something similar for Sasha.  While I loved the fact that his crabby butt was a part of this story, he sometimes went a little bit overboard.  Once again, it could just be me.

Overall, I do think Zarek is still one of my favorite, most tragic Dark-Hunters.  I didn't cry this time around, but I did get slightly choked up.  I recommend this book, but be prepared to have your heart beaten to a pulp by Zarek's backstory.

Marrying Winterborne (The Ravenels, Book Two): Lisa Kleypas

"A ruthless tycoon

"Savage ambition has brough common-born Rhys Winterborne vast wealth and success.  In business and beyond, Rhys gets exactly what he wants.  And from the moment he meets the shy, aristocratic Lady Helen Ravenel, he is determined to possess her.  If he must take her virtue to ensure she marries him, so much the better...

"A sheltered beauty

"Helen has had little contact with the glittering, cynical world of London society.  Yet Rhys's determined seduction awakens an intense mutual passion.  Helen's gentle upbringing belies a stubborn conviction that only she can tame her unruly husband.  As Rhys's enemies conspire against them, Helen must trust him with her darkest secret.  The risks are unthinkable...the reward, a lifetime of incomparable bliss.  And it all begins with Marrying Winterborne."

First and foremost, I liked this book infinitely more than I did the first in this series!  And that's somewhat of an understatement...  These characters were far more believable, likable, and, perhaps best of all, they had true chemistry and I could feel the sparks between them.  I had a feeling I would enjoy this book because I liked Rhys and Helen even back in the first book of this series (so much so that I thought they were such strongly-crafted characters that they actually overshadowed Kathleen and Devon -- the characters who really should have shone.  I loved the passion and the tension between Helen and Rhys.  As a male lead, I found Rhys dark, enticing, and captivating.  His intelligence and work ethic were poignant, as were the little things he did to show Helen that, in his own way, he really did care for her.  One example of this was his care of her very delicate orchid and the fact that he'd purchased numerous books on the subject.  Little details like this endeared him to me and made me enjoy the book all that much more.  Though I already liked Helen, I hoped that she wouldn't be took prim or demure in a book all her own.  Needless to say, I was thrilled when, right off the bat, she was determined not to let others speak for her or to allow her voice to be drowned out any longer.  This made for a much more interesting story and even better interactions with Rhys as he came to terms with her newfound strength and outspokenness.

I definitely appreciated the little details that were included in this story -- like Rhys's Welsh phrases and glimpses of his background, as well as his love for peppermint creams.  I think those kinds of things are what truly breathe life into a character and it is exactly what was missing from the first book.

One new character I found myself liking tremendously was Dr. Gibson.  She was lively, strong, and I really do hope to see more of her in the coming stories.  I haven't read much of the more recent works by Kleypas, but I think there may have been a crossover character from another series, though I won't reveal my suspicions until I am sure.

As far as criticism goes, I still found Kathleen's primness grating -- especially when she, herself, became pregnant out of wedlock while she was still supposed to be in mourning (I find her more than a little hypocritical, to say the least).  The twins, while a bit amusing, were still so over the top that they're a bit hard to stomach at times.  I have already picked up the third book in the series, so we will see how that one goes.  The language was occasionally stilted, as if too much of an effort were being placed on propriety.  This was not helped by some of the "thesaurus words" -- words that, while technically correct, are overly flowery and so complex that they do not necessarily fit with the rest of the tone (as if the author wanted a better word and opened a thesaurus to find one).

I do recommend this book and I clearly enjoyed it better than the first in this series.

Lady Catherine, the Earl, and the Real Downton Abbey: Fiona, The Countess of Carnarvon

"Lady Catherine, the Earl, and the Real Downton Abbey, a transporting companion piece to the New York Times bestseller Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey, tells the story of Catherine Wendell, the beautiful and spirited American who married Lady Almina's son, the man who would become the 6th Earl of Carnarvon.  The couple presided over Highclere Castle, the grand estate that serves as the setting for the hit PBS show Downton Abbey.  Following the First World War, many of the great houses of England faded as their owners' fortunes declined in the new political and social world of the 1920s and 1930s.  As war loomed, Highclere's survival as the family home of the Carnarvons was again in the balance--as was peace between the nations of Europe.

"Using copious materials--including diaries and scrapbooks--from the castle's archives, the current Countess of Carnarvon brings alive a very modern story in a beautiful and fabled setting, paying particular attention to the staff who provide Highclere Castle with continuity between generations."

This book is a semi-sequel to Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey, which I did enjoy -- especially for a work of non-fiction.  When I found out that there was another book revolving around the lives of the very interesting Highclere and the ever-fascinating Carnarvons, I began looking forward to picking it up.  This book was written with a similar ease and wealth of knowledge to the first, and I found this rather impressive.  I can only imagine the countless hours of research, interviews, and combing through records that it took to write this book.  My biggest feedback on this is that it moved in reverse flow from the first one:  While the other book was slow to start, it began picking up its pace and I ended up finishing it quite quickly; this book began very quickly and interestingly (perhaps because it essentially began right where the other finished), but was dramatically and noticeably slowed down when the Second World War began in earnest.  Personally, I feel like this happened for me because I am not a huge fan of war accounts.  I can manage snippets of personal histories and battles, but as soon as an author begins talking of strategy, battalion movements, and tactics...I have been lost.  My eyes begin to glaze over and I feel as if I've been thrust back into high school history class all over again.  The World Wars have always been the points at which I fumble in my passion for European (especially British) history (and I believe this is due in large part to the WAY in which it has been taught in American institutions over the decades -- very dry, date- and name-oriented, rather than broader-picture).  I feel like the second half of the book -- while it did in a very broad sense pertain to the Carnarvons -- certainly strayed from the aim of the rest of the book.  Lady Catherine and her family were mentioned more sporadically rather than as the main subjects.  I think the latter sections of the book would have benefitted from some more tying-in of various events directly to their lives.  While this happened now and then, I don't think it was enough for someone (like myself) who reads a book like this for the biographical aspect, and not as a history of a war.

Overall, however, I quite liked it.  I loved the pictures that were thrown in; they really helped breathe life into the names and personalities contained in the accounts.  The stories were told with a certain amount of finesse that I almost felt at times as if I were reading fiction instead of biographical information.  As a sequel to the other book by the current Countess of Carnarvon -- the wife of Lady Catherine's grandson -- I think this is a great companion work and will surely be fascinating to anyone who loves Downton Abbey.  It's wonderful to see echoes of stories and characters in the lives of the people who really lived at Highclere.