Awesome first book to a new series 
I had been putting off reading this book for a while now. Gena was so nice to even post the first three chapters but I couldn't bring myself to read them knowing that I would be highly disappointed that I wouldn't be able to finish the story! Well, I'm glad I did that.
This was a very good book! I'd have to say it wasn't my favorite Gena book though. However, with it being the first book of the series which required a brief introduction to all the demons in the story it was good. It had a great cast. I'm loving the demons. I'm looking forward to reading about the rest of them.
This book centers around Maddox the demon of Violence. He is cursed because he was the one to slay Pandora trying to prove that he should have been the one to guard the box that held the demons. His punishment in addition to housing Violence he must be slain each night in the same fashion that he killed Pandora. One night Ashlyn, who has her own unique curse of being able to hear the conversations of the past where ever she stands, ventures to the estate that the demons live in. Maddox, nearly upon his death bed for the evening, ventures out to slay the men following her and to find out who or what she is. She's quit to figure out that Maddox is the cure to the voices in her head. When he's around all is silent.
Maddox is forced by some inner thing to take her with him back to the castle. She witnesses and tries to save him from being slain that evening. Which evolves into a full blown love story between Maddox and Ashlyn. It's a very charming story.
9/10
3.5 Stars - Prequel to Showalter's Lords of the Underworld 
Darkest Fire, available so far only as an e-book, is a short story that is a prequel to the Lords of the Underworld series but it is completely standalone, no Dark possessed Lords here. Instead it is the story of the origins of the box which originally imprisoned the demons before being intrusted to Pandora. It is a beauty and the beast style romance between the beastly Guardian of the Gate to the Underworld and the beautiful Goddess of Opression whose strength keeps the walls of the Hell intact and the demons (lust, death, wrath, disease...) from being unleashed on the mortal world. It very much has the same type of feel as P.C. Cast's Goddess of the Rose with the romance between a creature that sees himself as so ugly that doesn't dare to hope that the beauteous object of his affection could see beyond his skin to his noble heart, it also has a similar type of bittersweet happily ever after. I thought that this was a nice little tease to the series before it hit the bookstores, and now that the books are out it's a brief 'just so' historical note to the series, since the box is what got all the Lords into an eternity of trouble. One caution though to readers, if you find a love between beings of two physically different species uncomfortable, this may not be the story for you.
Basia'a birthday list!
2008 must haves
darkest fire, darkest, fire
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based on 2 reviews
