This book was a 5 stars read up until the end.

And why did it change? Amun flipped the fuck out and beat the shit out of Strider. And that pissed me off. Royally. I lost most of the love and respect I had for him.

And yeah, maybe that makes me a crazy resentful bitch, but I don't care.

I just have one more thing to say right now:
- even though all this happened and I got majorly pissed off, I didn't expect to love the book as much as I did.
I wasn't expecting to like Haidee at all. I thought I would hate her for her involvement in Baden's death and that she was going to be a hateful bitch. And she was, in a way. No pun intended. The ones who read The Darkest Secret are going to understand what I'm saying.
However, she was surprisingly honest with her feelings, sweet and protective of Amun. I wasn't expecting that at all and that was a really great surprise that made the book better for me.

So, fans of the series, let's read this book.

Je ne pensais pas autant aimer ce roma, d'autant plus que je n'aime pas l'héroine.
Mais ce gardien est trop chou !

What can I say?

I think Gena totally went “See, I told you I could redeem myself after the last few okay LOTU books.” I have to say that the whole story drew me from page one. I was sucked into the vortex of twists, turns, and things I totally didn’t expect. For one when I first heard that Haddie was Amun’s woman, I was like how does that even make sense? Strider was all over her goodies. Then Gena did something I totally didn’t expect. She gave me true love in the truest and proper form. She handed the idea that they died within one another’s blood as the idea that they were in fact soulmates, that no matter what they would be forever bound; and unconditional love was the underlying theme.

I loved Haddie, I thought for sure I would want to chew her up and spit her out. But she was vulnerable! she was so vulnerable she came alive for me. I cried for her, I shouted when she died I was so in need of Haddie having a good ending that I was tempted to cheat and peak, I didn’t, but I was so very tempted.

Amun gave me a man that was tortured but he accepted that inner torture. He didn’t piss and moan about it, it was a part of him and it made him a stronger man in the process. The story was fantastic; it is officially my new favorite Lords book in the series. I still say Torin is my fav, but it might be hard to beat this book for me!

It starts out a little slow and Amun is one of the characters we get the least amount of info on during the prior books (probably because he never talks) so it seemed like it would be a hard read. However, it was amazing like all the other books in this series. I fell in love with Haidee and Amun when it was all said and done.

After feeling a little “meh” reading The Darkest Lie, I wasn’t even sure I was in the mood to continue to series. I continued (mostly because it’s the only book I brought with me on vacation) and I’m really glad I did because The Darkest Secret might actually be my favorite in the series so far. I really really enjoyed it, a thousand times more than I thought I would. We haven’t really gotten much information about Amun up until this point, so I had no idea what to expect. On top of that, I was certain at the end of The Darkest Lie that Strider and Haidee were about to have a thing and I wasn’t really enjoying their chemistry at all. I was kind of shocked all around to not only get to have Amun front and center, but to also have the romance between him and Haidee.

Amun was pretty screwed up after the events in The Darkest Lie and demons had all but taken over his head. Anyone who got close to him started to get a little twitchy and crazy, too, with all the demons trying to influence them. Amun was going mad, unable to control himself, and had to be guarded by Lysander’s angel friends. It was all kind of a mess. Strider locked up Haidee, a Hunter and hater of the Lords, in the cell next to Amun, and he wasn’t worried about Haidee’s well being or the harm in her being placed so close to demon crazed Amun.

Amun didn’t talk because he was afraid he would spill secrets if he opened his mouth. He signed instead and it was virtually his only way to communicate with others. With Haidee, though, he was somehow able to project direct thoughts into her head. She waltzed on into his cell once he “asked” her to do so. He looked A LOT like Haidee’s hunter boyfriend Micah, and that’s who she initially thought he was. No one was really happy about the two being close because Haidee was obviously a threat, but somehow, she was able to calm the demons inside of him, even Secrets, which was a big deal, so the Lords decided she had to stay next to him and keep him sane.

I loved their romance and I loved the way the two of them had to understand each other. Amun was used to always knowing everything about everyone and he couldn’t read Haidee for some reason, aside from bits and pieces of her past. Haidee hated the Lords, but she never really understood that they weren’t really evil, like every other Hunter. The two of them were forced to come together. They also had to venture back down into Hell to save Amun from the demons inside of him, which put a huge strain on their relationship and they encountered some pretty crazy stuff down there.

As I said, The Darkest Secret was probably my favorite installment so far. It surprised me because I didn’t already know or could predict how things would unfold because Amun was such a vague character who didn’t have a personality I knew anything about yet. I liked Amun way more than I originally expected to. I definitely recommend the series. It can be a little over the top with cavemen alpha male tropes, but I love the Lords and the mythology of the world. I can’t wait to read more!

Ok, so I finished it and, to be fair, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Haidee was actually pretty funny and cool and STRIDER. I love Strider. I can't wait for his book and Kaia; I think I'll like them, I think I'll really like them.

Amun surprised me. I noticed reading through other people's reviews that was generally the overall opinion. He is actually one of my favorite Lords now.

So, why 3 stars? Because it dragged. Because Zacharel is an ass, making them go cross-country for something that was right there all along. Like, is it really that hard to say "To get rid of the demons, you must bang one another." Like, really? Because Haidee's abilities were never explained except in huge info dumps. I will give the Darkest Lie one thing, there weren't any god-awful info dumps. In this one, there were a lot. Showalter tries to cover it up by using Secret's abilities, but we're still left lifting an eyebrow. And, also, so why did she have freaky ice abilities? Because she was a demon hunter? I'm confused on that one aspect.

So overall, still a good addition to the series. Still waiting on Torin's book. Nudge, nudge, wink,wink Showalter.

This series is one of my favourite guilty pleasures. The English Lit student in me squirms at the cheesiness of some of the writing, the shirtless man covers, the central couple's sudden and clearly detailed sexual attraction... but I have so much fun when I read the Lords of the Underworld series, it is very hard to bring myself to care about these points.

Showalter has a lot of imagination and handles a big cast of characters really well. Each of the Lords has a distinctive personality (despite all being ridiculously tall, ripped and prone to growling when their women are threatened) and Amun has been a character I was keen to know more about for ages now. Fortunately, he didn't disappoint - tormented, kind hearted and with an interesting affliction.

I was surprised that he had been paired with Haidee and was curious to know how she would be redeemed enough to be worthy of one of the Lords, but this aspect of the plot was handled really well. It was also nice to see movement on Strider's story (and maybe William's too?) and I am keen to know more about a certain angel.

My only complaint is that I would love to see a relationship that grows a bit more organically and isn't born solely out of physical attraction and/or magical macguffin plot devices - might be a bit much to ask for, but a girl can dream!