INTO THE SHADOW

Author: Christina Dodd ISBN: 9780451224514 7/2008 PARANORMAL Publisher: NAL/SIGNET

Blessed—or cursed—with the ability to change into a sleek panther, and driven by a dark soul he's accepted as his fate, Adrik Wilder abandons his family and his honor to pursue a life of wickedness. He excels at every vice, including kidnapping Karen Sonnet to use for his selfish purposes. But Karen's spirit and passion make him question the force of his family's curse. And when a new evil emerges, Adrik must choose whether to enact revenge on his enemies and redeem his soul, or save Karen from a fate worse than death…

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

Christina Dodd captures the mind of her readers with the third novel in her Darkness Chosen series, INTO THE SHADOW.

Karen Sonnet has lived her life to please her father, traveling to some of the most dangerous places around the world in order to build hotels for Jackson Sonnet. But it is on one such trip that she meets a dark and mysterious lover who will later come to save her life when the mountain she is on orders her off!

Karen's lover is Adrik Wilder, the youngest child of the Wilder family, whose patriarch made a deal with the devil years before that has cursed his children. For the three wilder sons and single daughter all have the ability to change into a predator creature. For Adrik, that predator is a panther. It is with this power that Adrik is able to be Warlord over his men, taking what he wants when he wants it. And when he sees Karen, there is no doubt in his mind that he will have her. But strong minded and willed Karen doesn't like being kept as a possession and when she is free from Warlord, she escapes, hoping to never see him again. Two years later, danger has returned to Karen's door and it is only with the help of Adrik that she will be able to escape it, along with helping him save the life of his father.

Christina Dodd has created a wonderfully engaging paranormal series in her Darkness Chosen books, and INTO THE SHADOW continues the powerful tale of this cursed family. I really enjoyed the previous novels in this series, SCENT OF DARKNESS and TOUCH OF DARKNESS, and was eager to continue reading about these fascinating characters that are human but also animal. Adrik is a wildly sexy hero, dark and mysterious but also strong and assured of what is his, whether that is the true case or not. His attraction to Karen is almost instantaneous and from then on, it is only a matter of time, for him, until the two are together. At first, he goes to her as her mysterious lover shrouded in darkness. But when the mountain Karen is working on comes tumbling down around her, he is there, her knight in shining armor. What ensued was a brief "captivity" for Karen as she is kept as a possession of his. But when danger surrounds him, he releases her with parting words that he will find her. And true to his word, he does, two years later when forces much like him are after her to retrieve an icon Karen has in her possession.

This story pulls you in from the get go and doesn't release its hold on you, even after the last page is read. The characters are so vividly portrayed through Dodd' beautiful prose that you feel they could be people you know, save for the paranormal element of man turning into a panther. But even that aspect of the story is engaging in and of itself, as it opens possibilities into a world where we are not alone and creatures other than humans exist. The story of the Varinskis is one that is explained throughout each novel of the series and then, further built upon. Karen is very smart but also tough, as her job is one that a man would typically hold as she monitors the construction of hotels in dangerous location. Though it is through her attraction to Adrik that we see a softer side to her, one that she feels is a weakness. Together, these two are explosive on the pages, and their romance is burning from the very beginning and doesn't die down throughout the unfolding of the story.

The last novel in the Darkness Chosen series is INTO THE FLAME, which stars the only Varinski daughter and her love interest, and I can't wait to devour that much in the same way I did INTO THE SHADOW.

Maame Kanbi