Darkness Revealed [Mass Market Paperback]

This is the 4th installment in Alexandra Ivy's "Guardians of Eternity" series and I recommend all four books highly. In this latest book, Conde Cezar is a vamp who has been carrying a torch for the elusive Anna Randal for over 200 years. When Cezar and Anna meet again the sparks fly and Anna finds herself being persued by the deadly Morganna Le Fey, cruel queen of the fairies who is hell-bent on killing her. Cezar is also holding a secret from Anna, namely that she's destined to become an "oracle" or a member of the exclusive high demon council. Only those with elemental powers are asked to serve on the oracle council. The problem is will Anna survive Morganna to become an oracle and more importantly will the council allow Anna to continue to love her vampire who has become more important to her than she could ever imagine? Filled with vamps, deadly fairies, imps, Arthurian legends, and one adorable and irritating French gargoyle named Levet these books are fantastic and Ms. Ivy is a terrific writer. An enthusiastic thumbs-up from a voracious reader.

Over two hundred years ago, Conde Cezar's immortal life changed. A vampire, he was used to being pursued as well as pursuing. When he notices innocent Anna Randall's fixation with him at a ball, he lies in wait for her knowing that she will go in search of him. And she does. Without clearly thinking his plans through and in a blaze of passion, Cezar seduces Anna. Both succumb to their mutual attraction to each other only to lose each other within minutes.

Anna Randall doesn't know what Conde Cezar did to her the night he seduced her but whatever it was, he needs to make it stop. Unable to form relationships with men, Anna can't make herself even date. Then there is her life. She is over two hundred years old and still looks like a young woman. But the most important question Anna has for Cezar is the strength and psychic abilities she seems to have acquired. It has taken her this long to find him and he owes her some answers - answers that Anna might not get if whoever is after them succeeds in finding them.

Cezar has more than paid the price for seducing Anna Randall. Two centuries of penance to the Oracles more than makes up for his seduction of her. Now, he has been given the task of protecting her from her arch enemy. Cezar knows that the attraction he felt for her so long ago has never died - it has just grown stronger. Forbidden to touch her because of her destiny, Cezar finds it harder and harder to obey. When her life is threatened yet again, enough is enough. Anna Randall is his and Cezar decides that life isn't worth living if they are not together. He just hopes the Oracles will understand.

Talk about true love! Anna and Cezar had no idea the plans they were setting into motion two hundred years ago when they couldn't keep their hands off of each other. Anna's life was in the hands of the Oracles, protected, and so Cezar made a grave error in judgment in his seduction of her. I like to think that had he known how important Anna would come to be that he would still have seduced her. I could feel the love he felt for her in every scene, especially his old world style of thinking that as a woman she needed protecting. Laughing more than once at Anna's inability to do what Cezar tells her, I couldn't help but see her feelings for him as well.

The path to true love is never easy; especially if you are protected by the chosen ones and the mate of a vampire. Anna's true feelings for Cezar, while she really wanted to be mad at him, were easily apparent and her confusion at his so called lack of attachment to her made me miserable for her. She wanted him to love her; and he did, with his entire being, but he was also stuck. To love Anna meant to lose her and Cezar was desperate to make sure he was never without her again.

Poignant, passionate and highly addictive, DARKNESS REVEALED is not to be missed. Alexandra Ivy continues to up the ante on these highly entertaining and emotionally gripping novels. My fixation with this series continues with no sign of letting up!

***Natalie S.***

In 1814 Anna Randal as the poor relation watches her cousin Morganna to keep her out of trouble. When her cousin vanishes, she follows only to be yanked into a room by the handsome Conde Cezar.

Attorney Anna Randal leaves Los Angeles for Chicago to attend a charity event where she plans to confront Conde Cezar. Over the almost two centuries since they met and he vanished without a trace, she waited for him to surface.

Conde knows Anna is in town as he can sense it and it feels good. His vampire pack leader Styx wants to know why the Oracle Commission is interested in Conde. He explains he is a guard to Anna, who is a potential commission member though there have been fewer than 12 in 10 millennia. When they meet Conde tells Anna he misses her blood. They both think back to 195 years ago when he grabbed her, they made love, and he bit her only to vanish. He hides from her that the Commission angrily grabbed him and only recently has he resurfaced. Anna tells him soon after he left, her aunt's house burned down killing her aunt and cousin. She also says she is an immortal but not a vampire demon like he is. She wants to know what she is. He says he does not know as he did not change her. However, a powerful magical practitioner wants her dead; Conde vows to keep his beloved safe while Anna falls in love with him but distrusts him.

The lead couple is a strong pairing as they have a one night history almost two centuries old and he knows information about her that he cannot reveal to her. The return of characters from previous Guardians of Eternity romantic fantasies (see WHEN DARKNESS COMES and EMBRACE THE DARKNESS) adds depth. However, it is the clever tie to King Arthur and Camelot that makes the tale although the final confrontation contains too much chatter especially from the villainess.

Harriet Klausner

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