Deliver Me from Darkness by Tes Hilaire

THilare-Deliver Me from DarknessSexy warrior men…check, vampires…check, demons…check.  What more could a girl ask for in a new series? Well, not much more really and Tes Hilaire’s Deliver Me from Darkness delivers it all.  Hilaire includes some yummy warrior men along with some action packed scenes between the forces of light and dark.

A STRANGER IN THE NIGHT…
He had once been a warrior of the Light, one of the revered Paladin. A protector. But now he lives in darkness, and the shadows are his sanctuary. Every day is a struggle to overcome the bloodlust. Especially the day Karissa shows up at his doorstep.

COMES KNOCKING ON THE DOOR
She is light and bright and everything beautiful—despite her scratches and torn clothes. Every creature of the night is after her. So is every male Paladin. Because Karissa is the last female of their kind. But she is his. He may not have a soul, but he can’t deny his heart.

I enjoyed Deliver Me from Darkness as I thought the story to be well written and easy to follow. Hilaire’s writing style is one I like, since for the most part, she keeps the plot going as she’s weaving in the world-building.  I also found it easy to connect with the characters the majority of the time. I really felt for the hero, Roland.  He’s a Paladin warrior who had been turned into a vampire nearly 100 years ago and he blames himself for a LOT of things that he didn’t have any control of. Did he make mistakes, yes, but he shouldered so much burden for far too long. Also, he believed that once he had been turned he had lost his soul.  It is a belief that had been instilled in him since his mortal birth, so one can’t really blame him for that.  But, he did fail to overlook just how good he was…and maybe the possibility that he wasn’t evil.  I just felt so bad for him and wanted to shake him for getting in his own way once he met our heroine, Karissa.

Karissa grew up not knowing really who she was…I can’t spoil it for you, but let’s just say she was never told why she could do what she can do, or really anything about her true identity.  The reason behind it seem noble, but once you find out some other things, yeah, you want to strangle the person behind it…but not entirely for the motive of wanting to keep her safe.  Her father is an arse of a major sort once things get revealed.  I’m seriously hoping there Hilaire is planning another Paladin book because I am dying to know see what the fallout is from the ending of Deliver Me from Darkness and what happens between Roland and Karissa and the information about them that is revealed.

There are some things I really didn’t like.  While the story moved along fairly well, there were definitely times where I felt the plot sagged. I lost interest and found myself skipping pages at a time (well lightly skimming to make sure I didn’t miss where the plot picked back up).  Also, how Karissa’s belief in things just changed in an instant and how completely she accepted it all.  She starts out very resistant, having really no knowledge of her “kind” and hesitant to trust anyone. That is relateable, needing time to process, to figure out who to trust, who is telling the truth.  So, when she decides to trust Roland at last, I found that believable.  But, to just instantly (it seemed) to be OK with their bond, to just accept it….yeah, not buying it in full.  Seemed too quick.  I don’t know, it just seems that Karissa was built up at first to be this skeptical person, one who had good reason for her skepticism, then to suddenly just be all “huh, well, yeah of course this makes perfect sense, take me to bed. . . “.  Don’t get me wrong, this is PNR after all, so of course we had to get her there.  Maybe some of those places where I skipped due to a lack of plot (IMHO) could have been filled with more of getting Karissa to where she needed to be and not make that so sudden of a change.

Even with that said, I have to read the next book in the series, whenever it becomes available.  The ending isn’t a cliffhanger, but Hilaire gives us enough to keep us hooked in. As I mentioned, I really want to see the fallout from the ending of Deliver Me from Darkness and I’m hoping it’s Valin and Gabby’s (I’ll just say that at first meeting I hated Valin, but he comes through for Roland and Karissa and in my view, redeems himself) book, as it seems that Hilaire has set that pair up :).

About Nicole 146 Articles
Attorney by day, Publicist for Barclay Publicity and reviewer/LE (assistant) editor by night. I'm a huge book nerd and love to read. I have 2 dogs, both Labrador retriever mixed breeds, who are very rotten and think they run the house. Let's not lie, they totally do, I just can't them know it ha ha! My usual genre is romance or urban fantasy. I love all things having to do with paranormal, with the occasional good contemp/BDSM/erotica thrown in to spice it all up.

1 Comment

  1. I liked Tess Hilaire’s world of Paladin Warriors -who are former angels that choose to become protectors of mankind and their descendants – plus vampires, demons, and a fallen Paladin who are evil, and various crossbreeds of all of the above who may or may not be evil. Since the hero Roland who is a Paladin that was turned vamp and is dead as far as the rest of his former brethren know, he’s outside of the main brotherhood so there’s not much male bonding or insight into the relationships and regular workings of the Paladin brotherhood yet. And actually the few views of the Paladins en masse is not wholly favorable as the heroine Karissa is a hot commodity – since she’s a rare female of the bloodline – and all the Paladins want to claim her for their own.

Comments are closed.