Book Title: Retribution
Dark Hunter # 20
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon
Hired gunslinger William Jessup Brady lived his life with one foot in the grave – until the day he finally found a reason to live. In one single act of brutal betrayal, he lost everything, including his life. Brought back by a Greek goddess to be one of her Dark-Hunters, he gave his immortal soul for vengeance and swore he’d spend eternity protecting the humans he’d once considered prey.
Orphaned as a toddler, Abigail Yager was taken in by a family of vampires and raised with one belief: Dark-Hunters are the evil who prey on both their people and mankind, and they must all be destroyed.
Brought together by an angry god and chased by ancient enemies out to kill them both, William and Abigail must find a way to overcome their mutual hatred or watch as one of the darkest of powers rises and kills both the races they’ve sworn to protect.
Format: Trade (UK) Paperback, 368 pages
ISBN: 9780749954833
Publisher: Piatkus Fiction
Publication Date: August 09, 2011
ALI’S THOUGHTS
Like many long time followers of this series, I really gave up on it several books ago. It had become the series that just would not die, and the plot turns required to allow it to carry on were making the whole thing too convoluted. And, if I’m bitterly honest, I never really got over Sheri killing off Nick.
But in Retribution there is a fresh lease of life offered to the series.
The same writing style I loved, the same sassy women and the same bad boys who’re really good boys. But Retribution was more based in Native American folk lore than our normal Greek, and the transition really worked.
Jess “Sundown” Brady, a dark hunter we’ve been introduced to previously, is in Las Vegas, kicking daimon butt…and then suddenly finding these guys are a bit more hardy than the normal run of the mill bad guys, a genetic mutation, if you will. What happens when the bad guys from different pantheons mixed? Nothing good.
Enter Abbi. Yes, she’s another orphan (there are a lot in them in this series) but she was adopted by Apollites after her parents were killed, but she was raised to hate dark hunters, as being the arseholes that killed her people for no reason.
Oh, and she accidentally starts the apocalypse by killing the wrong guy.
Retribution is filled with Ms Kenyons normal one liners and dry quips, but what really enlivened the story for me was the Native American apocalypse angle. Yes, she twisted it to mesh more time-wise, with the Mayan end of the world, but having Coyote as the bad god dude, and all the mythology that was able to be woven into the story, works really well and made a damn nice change from Artemis.
I usually find the dark hunter books relatively tame when it comes to the hot and steamy, and other than a rather uncomfortable small car scene, this goes with the stays quo.
That perhaps is one of the best and worst things about the dark-hunter series, the characters and scenarios may change, but the basic setup remains comfortably familiar. Boy meets girl, girl try’s to kill boy, boy almost dies and girl realizes that boy might be a bit shaggable, boy saves girl and realizes that he loves her, others subtly match-make with big I told you so grins when boy and girl get married.
It’s a formula that works, but had got stale, so I’m delighted with the new plot elements, it’s enough to restore my faith that Ms Kenyon can still keep those fun plot lines coming
Now to backtrack and read those last few that I’ve ignored (Ash got married! When did that happen!)
