Circle of DarknessRating: 2 stars
Buy Link:
Amazon | iBooks | Amazon UK
Length: Novel


Angel has been working as a server at an Italian restaurant and he becomes unbalanced every time D’Angelo comes in. Angel has psychic abilities and whenever D’Angelo is near, there is a spark and a hum, but Angel knows better than to act on it. When he sees a vision of D’Angelo in danger, he knows he has to do everything to try and save him because somehow he knows that D’Angelo is his destiny.

D’Angelo has spent his life dedicated to destroying the monsters that walk the earth. He’s busy and he certainly doesn’t have time for this insane attraction he feels toward Angel because D’Angelo doesn’t do relationships. But when a case has him spending more time with Angel, their connection grows and everyone around them can see it. D’Angelo will tell everyone who will listen that he wants nothing to do with Angel, but not only is the attraction keeping him off balance, he finds he really does need Angel’s help. Before long, Angel and D’Angelo will be allies as they face off against the darkness that could not only threaten their happiness, but the safety of the entire world.

Nicholas Bella is an author I have been interested in trying out for a while now and while Aimee Nicole Walker is a new author to me, I was intrigued by this book at first glance. But, this book will go on the list of one of the biggest disappointments in this year’s reading.

This book was all over the place for me. The beginning sets up the attraction between D’Angelo and Angel and they started out with great chemistry. D’Angelo wants to deny it all and is abrupt and rough with Angel and then the case they are working on takes precedent over their romantic life. While the chemistry is strong, the guys push and pull, flirt with the idea of using toys before that storyline is abandoned, and when they become a foregone conclusion, the world they live in then takes over the story.

D’Angelo is a demon hunter. He was trained for it from an early age, but when The Institute learned that he was gay and would not procreate, he was disavowed. Now, he and his friend Christian are out on their own battling the forces of evil. The world building and the rules of the society were one long info dump throughout the entire book. D’Angelo needs to get Angel caught up and goes into these long narratives about what is going on. Even D’Angelo recognizes what he is doing at one point when he says to Angel, “I’m dumping a lot on you, because we’re in this together and these are things you need to know.”

The main focus of the book is on them trying to track down an ancient relic and a demon and this entire plot line was not compelling for me. Most of the time the intricacies of the plot were lost by all of the telling and hardly any showing. The backgrounds of both guys are also told to us in long narratives. There are all kinds of demon names added in, the story jumped around, and I needed a better map than was provided here to pull this all together. I was anticipating dark and sultry, but most of the time the guys felt like junior sleuths stumbling around in a world they were poorly prepared for.

There was also an entire roster of characters here from demons, to vampires, to other humans, and it was an endless process of setting up future stories for the series. Early in the book Christian goes off on his own mission and he seemed to serve no other purpose than setting up the next book. Some of the dialogue was off for me as well as some of the references the characters made seemed out of touch for their age range.

There was a huge story here revolving around ancient artifacts, demons, demon hunters, vampires, psychics, an exorcism, and even the blood of Jesus Christ was thrown into the mix. But all of the moving parts overwhelmed the style and execution for me and not much ultimately held my attention as this was one true disappointment almost the entire way through.

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