Eternal Darkness Review

  Eternal Darkness (Cursed in Darkness #1) by Natalie Hancock

Synopsis

Layla, a twenty-one-year-old half-breed known as a dhampir, is incredibly beautiful and deadly. She drinks vampire blood for power and to stop the burning hunger.

The vampire academy is a hundred acres of land surrounded by high-tech security to ensure that none enter or leave. She is the protection.

When she has lessons with the vampires, she struggles with her hunger and has to learn to trust them—a big issue for Layla because of her past, something she can neither forget nor run from. The past that haunts her dreams reminds her that she cannot hide as she lives her life in the academy.

Then there is Shade—an impossibly handsome vampire and Layla’s one-on-one instructor. Desires she never knew rise whenever he looks at her. She cannot stop how her body reacts to his touch or how much she wants his body and his blood.

It is a forbidden lust that they share, one they must keep a secret from those around them or Layla risks everyone finding out who she really is.

Someone wants her dead. Layla’s goals, deal with the vampires who hate dhampir’s and keep herself alive. Can she do it?

Lisa's Review - 2 out of 5 stars

I wanted to enjoy this book, and the synopsis made it sound really good, so I was really disappointed from the start. First off, I found it very confusing. This is book 1 in the series, but even by the end of the book, I felt like I was reading the second book along and had missed the first part, there was so much going on that wasn't explained. I understand an air of mystery wanting to be created but there is usually some explanation in the first book of a series and I felt there was none in the book. You always have questions left unanswered, ready to be finished in a book further along, but this, explained nothing.

I also found myself really struggling with secondary characters. There were so many of them, and the use of 'different' names didn't help. I found myself struggling to work out how some of the names were said, which was frustrating as I didn't want to be going over character names all the time, but there were so many of them, a little summary type thing might have come in handy with some explanations of how the names were pronounced.

I didn't feel much of a connection with the main character, Layla. She just came across cold and frosty, and though we know 'something' happened to her, that's pretty much all we know, without really any clues as to why she is like that.

The one thing I did enjoy about this book was the descriptive way in which the fighting lessons were handled. I love having a visual in my head as I am reading and the fighting was so well described I could picture backflips and spins really well.

All in all this was not a book I really enjoyed, I found it a struggle to finish and when it did I was just left scratching my head in puzzlement.