Review: No Mercy

No Mercy
Sherrilyn Kenyon
Paranormal Romance
Dark Hunters/Book 19
St. Martins/September 2010

*Spoilers for previous books*

From the author's website ~

Live fast, fight hard and if you have to die then 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. Now in contemporary New Orleans, the immortal Amazon warrior is about to learn that there’s a worse evil coming to slaughter mankind than she’s ever faced before.

Shapeshifter Dev Peltier has stood guard at the front of Sanctuary for almost two hundred years and in that time, he’s seen it all. Or so he thought. Now their enemies have discovered a new source of power- one that makes a mockery of anything faced to date.

The war is on and Dev and Sam are guarding 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.

And here's another series that I'm still reading - 19 books and no end in sight. I'm not sure if it's always been so full of snark but everyone, and I mean every supernatural being, was full of the snark in this one. It got old after awhile. I expected it from Dev, he's always been a smart ass, but everyone else from the Dark Hunters to the Daimons had a quick smart mouthed comeback no matter the situation. Running for your life - snark attack. Fighting off hordes of Daimons - snark attack. End of the world - snark attack. I would have liked a few more serious, mature characters. Considering some of these guys are thousands of years old, I don't think that's too much to ask, right?

Dev Peltier is a bouncer at his family's club. That simplifies his life because he really is so much more. He's a good brother, a good uncle and a good friend. You would think he would have close relationships but he holds himself apart, even from his family. Until recently the club, Sanctuary, was under the protection of Savitar. It was a place where supernatural beings and humans mingled with no violence allowed. But in the previous book, Bad Moon Rising, Savitar revoked Sanctuary's protection and the club burned down. It's been rebuilt but Dev and his family are always on the alert for any new threat. Dev's an easy werebear to love. He's just so darn cuddly! LOL

Samia (Sam) is an Amazon and a Dark Hunter (DH). But she's not just a regular DH, she's one of the Dogs of War. Which just means she's even more kick-ass and she's not easy to control. She and the other Dogs give Ash a hard time. I liked Sam but she had some major issues and by the end of the book I couldn't help but wonder how she had stayed alive for thousands of years. The thing about any DH is that they can lose their powers if they focus on the memory of why they became a DH, usually it was their death or betrayal. This happened a lot to Sam. She's fighting, all kicking ass and taking names then - Wham! She's remembering her death and the death of her family. Results - no powers. Then she either gets kidnapped or Dev swoops in and saves her. When she did fight she was amazing, even impressing Dev, but you'd think after all these centuries, she's like 5000 years old, she would have learned to control her emotions and not get sucked into her past.

The overflowing world of Kenyon's is just so hard to keep track of anymore. There are the characters that have been around for numerous books, there are recently introduced characters that may have only been mentioned a couple of books ago, and the new characters that keep popping up in every new book. I really wish some of these characters would just tell their story, take their HEA and fade off into the sunset. LOL I like many of them but that's the problem, there are just too many! Kenyon does have an extensive characters list on her site which is nice as a refresher before reading the next book but I found myself referring to it more and more while reading this book.

The story is about Dev and Sam falling in love while being hunted down by those nasty Daimons. In between fighting off Daimons, searching for the holy grail of all girdles and getting over their past failures, there is some hot loving going on. Dev and Sam are a good fit as a couple but have so many issues to work through that some serious intervention was needed by some very powerful beings before the HEA was attainable. I would have preferred less external conflict and more focus on their internal conflicts. There was too much going on, too many subplots that took the focus off of Dev and Sam and left me wondering how they went from "Hi" to "I love you".

So, I'm still reading this series and I might read the next book, Redemption (August 2011). I'm on the fence since it's about Jess/Sundown (DH) and Abby, new characters. *sigh* I think Sundown has been mentioned before but just briefly. I might skip it. I do want to read Savitar's book but it's not even a glimmer on the horizon. He's the only one I'm holding out for and at this rate I might have stopped reading the series by the time his book rolls around. I guess if you're a fan of the series, then I would recommend reading No Mercy but it's hardcover so try getting it from the library.

Rating: C+