The Dark Hunters Volume 4 by Sherrilyn Kenyon Art by Claudia Campos

Synopsis


In the war against vampires, mankind has only one hope: The Dark-Hunters. Ancient warriors who died of brutal betrayal, the Dark-Hunters have sworn themselves into the service of the goddess Artemis to protect us.

It's a pact with pretty good perks. Immortality, power, psychic abilities, wealth and a cool wardrobe. But it comes with a few drawbacks: fatal sun poisoning and a new, irreparable dental problem. But aside from the fangs and nocturnal lifestyle, it's not so bad.

In this volume, the adventure continues with Talon and Sunshine as they face off against the Greek and Celtic gods bent on making a major comeback.

My thoughts:
Talon and Sunshine are two of my favorite characters from this series.  I think I like the beginning characters more than some of the later one because the series was still fresh then.  While I still enjoy reading each installment, there are now so many characters to keep track of that I feel like I start to forget who is who.  I need one of the cheater family tree diagrams like Christine Feehan uses in her Carpathian series!

Sunshine is such a pure and good character.  With her love of art and the way she looks for the best in people.  It is easy to see why Talon feels so strongly for her.  I loved seeing her grandmother and finding out the twists of fate that are woven into the fabric of their lives.  This was also the first book that gave a glimpse into Archeron's true character and his past.  I had forgotten how selfish and spiteful Styxx was in the beginning.

Seeing this story played out in manga fashion was fun.  The four volumes of the Dark Hunter series are the only  manga books I've read, but I really can see the appeal.  Because the pages do not have page numbers on them I have a hard time finding a good place to stop.  I always seem to think I'll just read one more page and before I know it I've stayed up too late and finished the book!  Since this one just came out this month I suppose it will be a bit before another volume is released.  I am a bit sorry I gave away the first volume because these are ones I now think I will be keeping on my shelves.

Product Details

Pub. Date: March 2011
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Format: Paperback , 208pp
Series: Dark-Hunter Manga Series
ISBN-13: 9780312554019
ISBN: 031255401X
Edition Description: First Edition

Check out my reviews on the first three volumes as well:
Dark Hunters Volume 1
Dark Hunters Volume 2
Dark Hunters Volume 3

Dark Hunters Volume 3 Story by Sherrilyn Kenyon Art by Claudia Campos

Synopsis
In the war against vampires, mankind has only one hope: The Dark-Hunters. Ancient warriors who died of brutal betrayal, the Dark-Hunters have sworn themselves into the service of the goddess Artemis to protect us.

It's a pact with pretty good perks. Immortality, power, psychic abilities, wealth and a cool wardrobe. But it comes with a few drawbacks: fatal sun poisoning and a new, irreparable dental problem. But aside from the fangs and nocturnal lifestyle, it's not so bad.

Talon, an ancient Celtic warrior, has been cursed by the god Camulus for killing his son.  Camulus cursed Talon, decreeing death for everyone he loved.  Now a Dark-Hunter in modern-day New Orleans, Talon meets Sunshine, who is key to ending his curse once and for all.  Not to mention helping him to save New Orleans from an ancient god bent on total destruction...
My thoughts:
I enjoyed reading Talon and Sunshine's story when I started the Dark Hunter series a few years ago and it is nice to go back and revisit them.  Over the course of time some of the details have gotten fuzzy for me, but for the most part I remembered the events that took place.  This book is only part one of their story, just as volumes one and two followed Kyrian and Amanda, volumes three and four are about Talon and Sunshine.  Both Kyrian and Julian make an appearance, along with Acheron and Nick.  Thinking ahead, if the manga series continues, I wonder how many books it will take to tell Acheron's story.  His was the longest of all the books and the most involved.  When I read the series his book is the one I started with so I knew all his secrets already when the characters in the books were still in the dark about him.

Getting back to the book, I enjoyed the illustrations and the telling through visuals.  I don't always care for the way the characters faces look when they are surprised or embarrassed, but I am guessing that that is a characteristic of manga illustrations (since the Dark-Hunter books are the only manga books I've tried out to this point in time).  I don't recall Ash having such long hair either, but it has been awhile.

Sunshine is one of the characters I always liked.  I liked her forgetfulness and the way she lives in her own little world.  In the novel Starla is introduced and then you find out that she is Sunshine's mother, but this book skipped over that.  Perhaps it didn't seem important or it could be that Kenyon and her editors thought that most readers of the manga books would have already read the novels so they would know that already.

In this book Styxx makes an appearance but who he is is not mentioned.  I can't recall if that was the case in the book either since I already knew who he was from having read the books our of order.  I love how quick and easy these reads are and how time flies while I am reading them.  I've started the fourth one, but now I need to look and see when the next one is supposed to come out.

Product Details

Pub. Date: September 2010
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Format: Paperback , 208pp
Series: Dark-Hunter Manga Series
ISBN-13: 9780312376888
ISBN: 031237688X

Biography

Sherrilyn Kenyon is a #1 New York Times bestselling author with more than sixteen million copies of her books in print, in over thirty countries. She is the author of the Dark-Hunter novels, which have an international cult following and always appear at the top of The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and USA Today lists. Writing both as Sherrilyn Kenyon and Kinley MacGregor, she is also the author of several other series, including: The League, Brotherhood of the Sword, Lords of Avalon, The Dream-Hunters and the forthcoming Nevermore.

Dark Hunters Vol. 2 Story by Sherrilyn Kenyon Art by Claudia Campos

Product Description

In the war against vampires, mankind has only one hope: The Dark-Hunters. Ancient warriors who died of brutal betrayal, the Dark-Hunters have sworn themselves into the service of the goddess Artemis to protect us.

It's a pact with pretty good perks. Immortality, power, psychic abilities, wealth and a cool wardrobe. But it comes with a few drawbacks: fatal sun poisoning and a new, irreparable dental problem. But aside from the fangs and nocturnal lifestyle, it's not so bad.

Kyrian is an immortal Dark-Hunter who just lost his Dark-Hunter powers and along with it, his immortality. Now he is faced with the chance to regain not only his humanity, but his very soul. The problem is, it couldn’t have happened at a worse time. Desiderius is closing in and if Kyrian and Amanda are going to save humanity then Kyrian must take the war to his enemy or it may be too late.

My thoughts:
I decided to treat myself to this book last week and it arrived in the mail today.  Part of me is a little sorry that I decided to trade the first one on Paperbackswap after I read it.  It would have been nice to have still had it around when I started reading this one, but I am trying to work on not keeping too many books on my shelf.  I have so many around to read as it is that once I've read them I try to get them back out of my house to make room for other new to me books.

This book is the second half of Kyrian and Amanda's story.  By the end of the this book their story has concluded and volume three will start with Talon and his story.  From what I remember it starts right where volume one left off.  I have to also say, that contrary to part of my review yesterday, during this book when some of the other dark hunters are listed in conversation Samia is mentioned, so I guess her name has been there all along and I had forgotten about her.  I'm sure she was at the fight in Sanctuary and I just focused more on the characters I had already read about more.

Going back to this book, I enjoyed reading the rest of Kyrian and Amanda's story.  I did read the novel Night Pleasures a few years ago and from what I can recall this follows the story pretty well.  I am finding it interesting to see the story in a different way through illustrations.  I also love how quick the two volumes were to read.  I can see why a lot of readers enjoy them.  While a lot of the inner dialogue is lost in converting it to this form, the pictures are able to convey actions even more succinctly than words at times which allows for a quicker understanding.  It was also interesting to see how Nick was portrayed in the early stories in contrast to how he was in No Mercy.  Seeing him as a cocky and sarcastic but essentially care free and life loving twenty-four year-old is so different than he is now. 

I am now weighing in my mind whether of not I should by volumes 3 and 4.  While I really enjoy them if seems like a lot of money to spend on books that can each be read so quickly.  I also would love to read the Chronicles of Nick stories to see how Nick is shown is high school but so far haven't spent the money on it yet.  I would love to hear other readers thoughts on deciding if a book is worth spending money on! 


Product Details

Paperback: 208 pages
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; First Edition edition (March 2, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0312554001
ISBN-13: 978-0312554002

No Mercy by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Synopsis
#1 New York Times bestselling author Sherrilyn Kenyon brings us back to the electrifying world of the Dark-Hunters and introduces us to a brazen heroine for whom there is

NO MERCY

Live fast, fight hard—and if you have to die, take as many of your enemies with you as you can. That is the Amazon credo and it was one Samia lived and died by. But today, in contemporary New Orleans, the immortal Amazon warrior is about to learn that there’s a worse evil coming to slaughter mankind than she ever could have imagined.

Meet Dev Peltier. A shapeshifter who has stood guard at the front of Sanctuary for almost two hundred years, he’s seen it all—or so he thought. His enemies have just discovered a new source of power—one that makes a mockery of anything faced to date. Now the war is on and it’s up to Dev and Samia to guard ground zero. But in order to win, they will have to break the most cardinal of all rules—and pray it doesn’t unravel the universe as we know it…

sherrilynkenyon.com
dark-hunter.com
officialsanctuary.com


 My thoughts:
It's been a while since I read my last Dark Hunter book and I was ready for a visit again.  When I started reading the series a year or two ago I actually started out of order.  I read Arecheron's book first because I came across it at the library, then I moved back to the beginning of the series and discovered more about each of the Dark-Hunters, Were-Hunters and the other characters who are a part of the series.  I have to admit it was a bit disconcerting to have each book posing questions about Archeron since I had already read the book with the answers about his past.

I don't recall anything about Samia in the past books, she may very well have been there but I don't think she stood out for me.  This book says she was at the fight that took place at Sanctuary the end of the last book when Nicolette Peltier died.  I do, however, recall Dev the Were Bear.  It seems to me that he has been in a number of past books since he has such a large roll in guarding the door at Sanctuary and for a long time was a good friend of both Nick and Archeron.  I remember his sarcasm and sense of humor from other books.

I enjoyed that Samia had been an Amazon since it goes along with the Wonder Woman comics that I have been rediscovering lately.  At one point in this novel she has a challenge with another Amazon, similar to the obstacles and feats she grew up with and it was really interesting to see how she fought through the challenge and how she retained her honor even when her opponent was cheating. 

It will be interesting to see how much these two will figure into future books.  Sometimes once a couple become a committed item they seem to disappear from the pages of the next book, sometimes they continue to make appearances.  I missed some of the early characters that were not in this one.  I hope that they will at least be talked about a bit in the next one and it will also be interesting to see how the birth of Archeron's child is handled in the books.

Biography

Sherrilyn Kenyon is a #1 New York Times bestselling author with more than sixteen million copies of her books in print, in over thirty countries. She is the author of the Dark-Hunter novels, which have an international cult following and always appear at the top of The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and USA Today lists. Writing both as Sherrilyn Kenyon and Kinley MacGregor, she is also the author of several other series, including: The League, Brotherhood of the Sword, Lords of Avalon, The Dream-Hunters and the forthcoming Nevermore

Product Details

Pub. Date: September 2010
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Format: Hardcover , 343pp
Series: Dark-Hunter Series , #18
ISBN-13: 9780312546564
ISBN: 0312546564

The Dark Hunters Volume 1 Story by Sherrilyn Kenyon Art by Claudia Campos

The Dark-Hunters (Dark-Hunter, Bk 1) Synopsis from Goodreads.com:Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon
In the war against vampires, mankind has only one hope: The Dark-Hunters. Ancient warriors who died of brutal betrayal, the Dark-Hunters have sworn themselves into the service of the goddess Artemis to protect us. — It’s a pact with pretty good perks. Immortality, power, psychic abilities, wealth and a cool wardrobe. But it comes with a few drawbacks: fatal sun poisoning and a new, irreparable dental problem. But aside from the fangs and nocturnal lifestyle, it’s not so bad.

Until Kyrian meets the most frightening thing imaginable. An accountant who’s being hunted by one of the most lethal vampires out there. If Amanda Devereaux goes down, so does he and no offense, he doesn’t want to die (hence the whole immortality thing). And he doesn’t want humanity dead either which is a good thing for us since he and Amanda are all that stands between us and oblivion. Let’s hope they win.

From the wild imagination of Sherrilyn Kenyon comes the humorous and suspenseful manga debut of the #1 internationally bestselling Dark-Hunter series. The world of manga will never be the same again.

My thoughts:
When I decided to try out this book I thought it was a graphic novel but then I saw it listed as manga. Honestly I am not all that sure of the difference. This is the first book of this genre that I have read and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I have read a good part of Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter series. I don't think I am all the way up to date but I've read most of them. I thought that this book would be the whole story of Kyrian and Amanda, but it wasn't. This is a little embarrassing to admit but when I first picked it up I knew it read from the opposite side of the book but I was still reading the pages from left to right. After a few pages of thinking it didn't sound right I realized that I need to read all the pages right to left just like the book. At the very end of the book, at what would be the first page in a regular book, there was even a diagram on how to read the pages. It is a mistake I will not make again but it feels weird to read in the opposite direction!

It seems that this book was more efficient in telling the story than the novel, but I know large parts of what the characters were thinking must have been omitted. Kind of like cliff notes for the novel with illustrations perhaps? That said, I did enjoy it and I loved how quickly it read. It seemed to take almost no time at all to read it. I already added the next book to my wish list so I can read it. I was also thrown by the lack of page numbers, I have a thing with wanting to know what page I am on and how much I've read and I wasn't able to do that with this book. So along with reading backwards I had not knowing how much I was reading, I guess I was really out of my comfort zone!

I liked how the illustrations added to the story to make up for the missing text and I can see the draw to read books of this type. A part of me had considered manga something for kids not adults, but just as YA books can also appeal to adults I guess so too do manga. I think even for someone unfamiliar to the Dark Hunter series there would be no problem with following the story and understanding all the elements.