Review: Dark Swan

Dark Swan by Gena Showalter
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

There was a point where the only romance stories I would read were of the paranormal variety. Things have changed over time, and I’m much more willing to pick up romance stories of all kinds, but paranormal remains my favourite. Despite it being my favourite, I’ve read surprisingly few of the big names in the genre. Gena Showalter is one such big writer in the genre I have failed to pick up.

Whilst the Lords of the Underworld series does seem interesting, I’m not crazy about picking it up. There is potential, but it does not scream out to me in the way some series do. Of Gena Showalter’s series, it’s the Lord of the Underworld series that interests me the most. Thus, you can see why I have not picked up a Gena Showalter book before.

However, I was finally given my introduction to Gena Showalter through Blood Red Kiss. I brought it to read Kresley Cole’s The Warlord Wants forever, yet I was happy to give the Larissa Ione and Gena Showalter stories a read as well. Unfortunately, of the three, the Gena Showalter story was my least favourite.

It’s possible I would have enjoyed this one more had I read the two prior Otherworld Assassin books, but I’m not sure. A part of me believes if I were to go and read the Otherworld Assassin books I would not enjoy them much, and I would blame it on how I have not read the Alien Huntress series of which it is a spinoff. I believe this is one of those situations where my desire to like something will have me creating excuses of why I didn’t like it. Sadly, the reality of the situation is that very little of this one appealed to me. Moreover, I’m not interested in finding out more.

Throughout the entire book, I failed to connect with any of the characters. I wasn’t at all interested in the details of their lives, nor did I feel anything towards them. Anything could have happened and I wouldn’t have been at all bothered – there was nothing to make me care about them, nothing that interested me. I know followers of the series enjoyed this story because of the male lead being of interest from the prior books, but I didn’t care for him at all. There was nothing about him that I found interesting – and I didn’t feel anything for our female lead either.

The story failed to entertain me, too. I kept expecting something big to happen, for there to be a moment where I felt something, but it went along without me caring. I kept reading – forcing myself at times – hoping something would occur, but nothing ever did. There was no plot twist, no real moment where things made me feel, and it was all rather expected and cliched.

There was the potential for things to be interesting, a part of me was curious about the world building, but the way in which the story was told left me feeling nothing at all. Part of me blames this on my lack of knowledge caused by not having read the prior stories, but a much larger part of me believes it was Gena Showalter’s storytelling – whilst it wasn’t bad, it simply wasn’t something I enjoyed.

Overall, I’m unlikely to be picking up another Gena Showalter book at any point in the foreseeable future. My sister has read her White Rabbit Chronicles and really enjoyed it, which means she has been asking me to read it for quite some time, so there’s the possibility of me one day picking up something else Gena Showalter wrote, but it is unlikely to be soon.

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