Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Dark Descendant by Jenna Black [REVIEW]

Dark Descendant
(Nikki Glass #1)
by Jenna Black
Summary from Goodreads:

"From the acclaimed author of the Morgan Kingsley, Exorcist books comes the gripping first novel in a new series about a private eye who discovers, to her surprise, that she’s an immortal huntress.

Nikki Glass can track down any man. But when her latest client turns out to be a true descendant of Hades, Nikki now discovers she can’t die. . . .

Crazy as it sounds, Nikki’s manhunting skills are literally god-given. She’s a living, breathing descendant of Artemis who has stepped right into a trap set by the children of the gods. Nikki’s new “friends” include a descendant of Eros, who uses sex as a weapon; a descendant of Loki, whose tricks are no laughing matter; and a half-mad descendant of Kali who thinks she’s a spy.

But most powerful of all are the Olympians, a rival clan of immortals seeking to destroy all Descendants who refuse to bow down to them. In the eternal battle of good god/bad god, Nikki would make a divine weapon. But if they think she’ll surrender without a fight, the gods must be crazy. . . .
"

Rating:

You know you got a good book when you can hardly put it down. Dark Descendant, for me, is just one of those books.

Nikki Glass, the leading character for Dark Descendant, works as a Private Investigator and she’s damn good at it. Ironically, she finds out she’s a descendant of Artemis, the goddess of the hunt when she stumbles into the world of the Liberi. Her world then after has become far from ordinary...

I love Mythology, so I don’t think there’s any use in questioning why I picked up this book. I have also read some books by Jenna Black (the Faeriewalker series/trilogy). I love Jenna’s writing. She can create characters that, although you may not love, are interesting and memorable. She also seems to be a huge coffee addict; I mean fan, a huge coffee fan (to put it lightly). I remember, Dana, the protagonist of Faeriewalker, cannot go a day without getting a cup of coffee and here I find Nikki always taking a moment to get herself a cup too. I have nothing against this really, I love coffee myself and I can’t let a day pass without it, but I really find it entertaining to see that the author kind of made it a point to always have coffee. Teehee!

Anyway, back to Dark Descendant, I have to say that the concept is really what I love the most. Gods and goddesses having human descendants is already a common idea, but how the characters here in this book get to earn their immortality was a unique approach. I’m not going to say how but once you find out, I think you’ll think likewise; probably a little too morbid but unique all the same.

Jenna Black introduces us to a rather interesting set of characters (I’ll only mention a few since there are too many of them): there’s Blake, a descendant of Eros the god of Love, can you imagine being controlled by his power of persuasion? Wow that might be totally embarrassing once you get a hold of yourself again; then there’s Alexis, a descendant of Zeus, also known to me as the jackass (yes, I seriously don’t like him); Anderson, the leader of the Liberi and the descendant of... actually... never mind let’s skip him, there’s a lot you’ll discover about him in this book *sheepishly grinning at you*; Jamaal, descendant of Kali the god of Death who has gone half-mad and does not trust Nikki (Jamaal also happened to kick the crap out of Nikki, poor girl). Of course there’s Nikki, whom I love for being very dedicated to protecting her adoptive family in spite of trying to stay detached to them as much as she can. I know she’s not exactly the tough girl kind; she doesn’t get super strength or anything from being Artemis’ descendant, but she uses her skills the best way possible. She has incredibly good aim though, and any item she gets her hands on can turn into a deadly weapon, so what the heck?!

It’s not as action packed as I thought it would be but I got so caught up in the flow of the story that it hardly even bothered me. I did notice that it’s a little short on the romance side but I guess I can make assumptions on see if they're right, as this is a series after all. There’s probably more to come with the next books and I can’t wait to get the chance to read them!