Let’s start this off honestly. I only picked up this book because I’m trying to be less of a snob. Both about this type of fantasy (urban pop romance, I would call it) and about authors who are as prolific as Ms. Day (the first three books of this series were published in the same year). Eve of Darkness did nothing to dispel my disdain for this type of novel because Eve of Darkness is terrible on many, many levels. Basically all of them that I can think of. Plot, characters, world building, and structure. All terrible. I can’t think of a single redeeming feature. Well, I listened to the audiobook and the reader was very good. But nothing Sylvia Day contributed was good or skillful in anyway. At all.
Okay, let me try to explain the plot of this book. It will be hard because to my mind it made no fucking sense and by the time anybody got around to explaining things to the main character (2/3rds of the way through the book), I didn’t give any damns any more.
At 18 Evangeline Hollis lost her virginity to a beautiful man named Alec who promptly disappeared. Ten years later, Eve is a successful interior designer but still single and longing for that one amazing night. She is at a job interview when she spies another beautiful man who reminds her of Alec. Their eyes meet and sparks fly. When her business is completed, the new beautiful man ushers Eve into a stairwell where they proceed to have sex. In the throes of passion, the man sprouts wings and brands Eve with his bare hand, intoning “Bear the Mark of Cain.” Eve passes out and when she wakes up (clothing fully restored) she decides to go home rather than with the paramedic.
Eve arrives home and is starting to feel a little funky when lo and behold, who should show up but Alec. Turns out, Alec is really Cain of Cain and Able fame and has been cursed to walk the earth slaying demons until he earns redemption. But God likes to test Alec from time to time and sets temptations in his path. Eve was one of those temptations. Because Alec gave into that temptation, Eve is Marked as sinner too and given immortality in the pursuit of redemption via demon slaying. Her body in now starting to transformation into “Mark”, which will give her the strength and heightened senses need to fight demons. The transformation will take about a week and somehow require sex to make it safely through.
Eve makes the transformation and thus begins the demon hunting. There’s some other nonsense with archangels with agendas of their own, other Marked trainees being assholes to Eve for no reason I could see, and the death of the best character in the book but it’s really all periphery. There’s also my favorite, a love triangle. Because the beautiful man with wings who Marked Eve? Turns about to be Able of Cain and Able fame, now going by Reed. Oh the male posturing, how delightful./sarcasam
Now, let’s get down to my major problems with this book. First, the sex scenes. There are three of them and they all have so many consent issues that I found them hard to stomach. In the first one, between Reed and Eve, she asks him to slow down and he doesn’t. She asks him about condoms and he shushes her and thrusts his bare penis into her vagina with nary a word. The scene indicates that Eve enjoys herself anyway and she never bring up either fact in later interactions with Reed but as someone who firmly believes in the “yes means yes” method of consent I HAD BIG FUCKING PROBLEMS WITH THIS SCENE, WHAT THE FUCK, NO. The second sex scene isn’t any better. On the last day of her transformation Eve wakes up ridiculously horny after being more or less comatose for the last seven days (get it, seven days because RELIGION). She’s unable to open her eyes or think about anything other than sex. So Alec, who has been taking care of her this whole time, comes and gives Eve what she “needs.” Because clearly somebody who can’t open their eyes and is in the grips of a magical transformation is able to give the informed consent needed before engaging in sex. Except for how it’s the exact opposite of that. Again, the text would have you believe that Eve enjoyed herself and has 100% no problem with this but I did because this is not a responsible or sexy way to write a sex scene, jesus christ stop it. The third sex scene is between Reed and an archangel he goes to for help and includes manipulation, blackmail for sex, and emotional abuse. Hot.
Now on to crappy world building! I have no idea why Eve was Marked. Supposedly it is because she sinned in fornicating with Alec but fornicating in general doesn’t appear to be a Mark-able sin (otherwise there would be a LOT more Marks) and Reed tells Eve that she was the temptation, not the tempter. He specifically calls her the apple (which, fantastic way to other/dehumanize your female lead, Ms. Day). The organization of the Marks and their higher-up is a little more clear, but not much. The general structure is visible but the details are super fuzzy. There’s other stuff too but you’re not going to read this book, so just trust me when I say this is a very poorly build world.
Crappy characters, you’re up next! Eve’s personality can be summed up to “Stubborn to the point of stupidity and willing to do anything for Alec.” Alec…has long hair and wears tee-shirts? Reed wears suits. That’s all I’ve got. Except, Alec and Reed, who are millennia old (adding another fun level to Alec’s bedding of 18-year-old Eve!) and have been doing their jobs for nearly as long as they’ve been alive still somehow cannot work together like civilized beings. You would think after the first couple of centuries rising to the bait would get old, but nope, let’s fight over a girl! Yay!
Lastly, there’s the structure of the book. It starts after the end and then backtracks. So you know how the book ends from the very start. There are two problems with this. One, it drains tension from the narrative to know how it’s going to end and two, I WAS SO FUCKING CONFUSED. Normally I enjoy books that throw you in off the narrative deep end and expect you to swim, slowly giving clues and hints to the structure of the world. This novel did not achieve that. I spent the first fifteen minutes convinced that Wikipedia had the novel order wrong and I was reading the second book in the series.
In conclusion, do not read Eve of Darkness by Sylvia Day because it is a terrible book on all levels.
“I can’t think of a single redeeming feature.” Does me being greatly amused by your review count?
It’s certainly going in my plus column! Thanks, love!
That was fun.
I certainly had more fun writing the review than I did reading the book!
That was great! I’m never gonna read it, thank you, thank you!
Thanks! I’m glad I could save you the pain of this book.
I think we need Cannonball t-shirts that say “I’m verbose when I hate something.” That sums us all up pretty well, yes?
Thanks for taking this bullet for the rest of us, Amanda!
Haha, that would be fantastic!
You’re welcome! I wouldn’t want any of my fellow Cannonballers to damage their delicate brains with this kind of nonsense, so I’m happy to take one for the team.
I’m confused by something. WHY do authors change their pen name, and then say “writing as X” or whatever? I mean, sure you’ll get your existing fans to read your new work, but why not just keep writing as name Y?
I don’t get it.
If an author writes in two different genres, they might use a variant of their name to indicate this. That way you won’t pick up a book by Iain Banks and be disappointed that it wasn’t science fiction. That’s Iain M Banks.
It’s even more important if there’s a HUGE difference in the content — like one genre is fairly tame Young Adult and the other is very graphically violent and/or sexual.
Sometimes it’s because they wrote something when they were younger and published it under one name (like they had a job that would frown upon the content of the book and they couldn’t risk losing the job if writing didn’t work out, or they were writing in a genre with a serious gender bias) and they’ve become famous under another name and the older stuff is being reissued in the new name.
Meg Cabot is a good example of all of these reasons! Early in her career she wrote romance novels under Patricia Caobt, then she wrote YA novels under Meg Cabot, then YA paranormal under Jenny Carroll (though that might also have been because of a different publisher), and now her romance novels are being sold as ebooks under Meg Cabot.
Ooh, didn’t even think about the “different publisher” thing… one publisher might have a contract with an author for a series, and won’t let them publish anything else under that name, so they contract somewhere else under another name, and then once one or the other contract is up and the books belong to the author again…
Her body in now starting to transformation into “Mark”,
You have no idea how much I wanted you to say that Eve started turning into a dude at this point and the book evolved into MM romance.
Also… they’re Cain and Abel and her name is Eve? Ew.
That would have won the book a lot of point with me, no lie.
Yeah, it’s pointed out in the book, which does not make things better.
I love urban fantasy/romance/etc. In fact, I write those (though I hope mine don’t suck like this apparently does). This sounds like the writer took a checklist of outdated tropes and threw them at the page to see which ones stuck. I’m sorry you suffered through that. Please don’t give up on the genre because of this experience. There are some decent tales out there.
I’m a fan of urban fantasy and of romance novels but I’ve as yet to find an author that pairs them with real success. For instance, I think Stacia Kane’s Chess Putnam books are decently written but all of her characters are deeply unsympathetic. Kelley Armstrong’s books are fun but they get repetitive . That kind of thing. But if you have recommendations, I’m always happy to give something else a go!
Ilona Andrews writes paranormals with a romantic HEA for each book in their Edge series. 1) On the Edge, 2) Bayou Moon, 3) Fate’s Edge (my favourite) and 4) Steel’s Edge. Burn for Me is the first book in their trilogy for Avon, but the romance is clearly going to build over more than one book. There is mainly setting up and sizzling chemistry in the first book.
Why yes, I love Ilona Andrews. No, I’m not getting anything to pimp their books at every concievable opportunity. Just the joy of more people possibly falling in love with their books.
No worries, I have books/authors like that too (anything by Peter S. Beagle and The Raven Cycle books by Maggie Stiefvater at the moment) so no worries! I will def check out Ilona Andrews!
See, I’m pretty sure I picked up this book extremely cheaply at a sale rack in a fantasy book store many years back (opens new browser tab to check LibraryThing as is too lazy to get off the sofa to physically check the bookshelf). Yup, I own this book. It sounds unbelievably awful. It also doesn’t sound like something I want to foist off on the school library where I work. Fleemarket donation it is!
Your review is excellent and eloquent and I like the way you rant about so many different aspects that sucked. I would totally buy a t-shirt that said “I’m verbose when I hate something”. You may want to look into having them made, you could make a pretty penny. Of course, I should just have a t-shirt that says “I’m verbose.” :)
I’ve got a super nerdy Excel spreadsheet, myself, for when I need to check if I own a certain book. Because getting up is for suckers.
Oh man, if I made the tee-shirts myself, I could ensure they have vee-necks! I am liking this plan. Death to crew necks!
Sounds like the best part of the book is this review. I truly cannot wait until we are done with rapey sex (I’m looking at you 50 shades) in books. Oh wait, I meant everywhere.
Thanks! And, ugh, a world of yes. I do not understand the appeal of 50 Shades. I read the first one and was all, “Guys, this is so bad. Are you this desperate for smut? Because there is SO MUCH better written smutty fanfiction out there. Do you need me to direct you to it? PLEASE LET ME DIRECT YOU TO IT.”