This review is for the audiobook versions of the Dark Sword series by Donna Grant. I listened to the six novels (I would assume more audiobooks are on the way) consecutively over a couple of weeks. I needed something light and escapist, and historical-paranormal-romance seemed like a good fit. I wouldn’t recommend listening to several books by the same author this quickly, as pet phrases will begin to grate, and you might notice small, annoyingly repetitive details more than you would otherwise.
As you can probably guess from the covers, these are a series of romance novels about Highland warriors, but these aren’t ordinary men, they have evil (I think?) gods trapped inside of them, providing immortality and individual “special powers” they must use to fight an evil Druid woman determined to conquer the world. Unsurprisingly, each Warrior meets and falls in love with a woman (either Druid or Warrior) while fighting evil. Most end up rescuing their women, although a few of the women rescue the Warriors. Each of the women have a particular scent (which I don’t think I would have picked up on if I’d spread the books out) that I can’t fathom. One is “snow and pansies,” another “sunshine and violets.”
There is a clear distinction between the good and the evil, and the good always makes progress, never completely winning, but also not losing.
I didn’t hate them, didn’t love them, and will listen to the others as my library receives them. They’re good for escaping a world where good doesn’t always win. I’ll be looking for more books like that in the near future, I’m sure.
This sounds like good escapist reading.