Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter series of books has been extremely successful and has now stretched to this, the twelfth instalment. However for me this wasn't a very satisfying story taken on its own and is probably one for long-time fans of the series rather than new readers. The Dark Hunter series brings together various ancient gods (Greek gods and, in this story, the gods of ancient Sumer too) who fight amongst themselves. There are also various demon and other creatures that cause mayhem and the Dark Hunters' role is to protect humanity. This story focuses far more on the supernatural element. We meet Sin, one of the ancient Sumerian gods, who has been carrying out a one-man mission to prevent global annihilation for thousands of years. He holds a huge grudge against the goddess Artemis who stripped him of his powers. However when Artemis sends her daughter, Katra, to kill Sin she discovers the work that he is doing to save humanity and joins him in it. Of course Sin isn't aware of who she is initially and even when he finds out she's the daughter of Artemis there are more secrets that she holds from him, things that he might not be able to handle. There are a lot of secrets in this story. The secret of Kat's existence, unknown to her father Acheron, is one; there are many other things revealed as the book progresses but the most notable thing about this book is the enormous cast of characters and different gods, demons, races. For someone who hasn't read all the other stories there was far too much going on in this story and the backstory was lamentably thin. As the story continued there were more and more supernatural beings added to the mix with their apparently limitless powers and it became extremely difficult to follow the underlying story, that of Kat and Sin. Our hero and heroine were slightly disappointing in that their characters didn't really develop beyond an attraction to each other and I didn't feel particularly sympathetic to them. Of course when the big secret is unveiled, the one that could separate them forever... it was rather a damp squib. Their mission to save the world is important but they seemed to get sidetracked periodically - including by the bedroom - and the momentum of the plot was rather jerky. Fight scenes are over quickly, people are able to flash from place to place instantly and the gods powers seem to always encompass just what they need to get out of a particular situation. Overall this was a very disappointing book and the cast list was far too wide for someone who hasn't kept up with the series to understand what's going on. Originally published for Curled Up With A Good Book, www.curledup.com. © Helen Hancox 2007