Deadmen Walking by Sherrilyn Kenyon – a Review

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Description:
Hell hath no fury as a demon caged . . .

To catch evil, takes evil.

Enter Devyl Bane—an ancient warlord who has absolutely no love of humanity.  Yet to return to the human realm as one of the most notorious pirates in the Spanish Main for the sake of vengeance, he makes a bitter bargain with Thorn—an immortal Hellchaser charged with battling the worst monsters the ancient gods ever released into our world. Monsters and demons Bane himself once commanded against Thorn and the humans.

For eons, those demons have been locked behind enchanted gates…which are starting to buckle. Now, Bane, with a vicious crew of Deadmen at his command, is humanity’s last hope to restore the gates and return the damned to their eternal prisons.

But things are never so simple. And one of his biggest vexations, aside from keeping his crew from killing each other before they have a chance to save humanity, is the very ship he sails upon. For Mara, the Sea Witch isn’t just a vessel, she’s also a woman born of an ancient race Bane helped to destroy. And sister to the possessed creature who is one of the worst of those trying to break through to claim his soul, and retake the world.

Mara’s innate hatred of him makes the very fires of hell look like a sauna—not that he blames her. Centuries of war and betrayal divide them. But if Mara can’t find the humanity inside the Devyl and the Devyl can’t teach Mara to embrace her darker side for the good of their crew and the world, the two of them will go down in flames and take us all with them.

Review;

Deadmen Walking is a new trilogy by Sherrilyn Kenyon.  The events of this trilogy take place well before the Dark Hunters, Chronicles of Nick, and the Hellchasers.  However, there are some characters in this trilogy that we’ve already met in both of her other series.  We learn more about Thorn and how he became the leader of the Hellchasers/Deadmen, as well as some very interesting information about him that I prefer not to spoil for anyone who hasn’t read this one yet.  As well, there are some spoilers/hints in regards to the Chronicles of Nick to which I will not spill as well.  Sorry folks but I don’t like spoilers so therefore I refuse to spoil plotlines for all of you.  😉  Since Deadmen Walking is a new trilogy for Kenyon there is a lot of world building going on in this one, which for me I liked because it’s setting the stage for the other two books in this trilogy, but I found much of it confusing to me.  I spent a lot of time trying to keep everything straight from new characters, new pantheons, realms, mythologies, etc.  My head was hurting a few times from this information overload. 

Being a Kenyon fan I can safely say I enjoyed this new addition to her Dark-Hunter/CON/Hellchaser universe, but I didn’t love it.  I think that’s a first for me.  It’s not that I didn’t like the origin of this one because I love Pirates, Mer-people, demons, sprites, you name it, that creature was probably in this one.  Heck the heroine, Marcelina is of an acient race that can shift into trees, or become one with wood.  She is basically the ship Devyl and his crew of Deadmen are sailing on.  Actually, for a second there I thought I was re-visting Middle Earth in the The Lord of the Rings when they encounter the Ents(Tree People), lol!!  Actually, Marcelina’s race and backstory was pretty interesting for me to read about.  I wound up liking her in the end.  As for Devly and his crew of Deadmen, they are under Thorn’s watch/control.  The Deadmen as they are called in the book are actually earlier versions of his Hellchasers, at least that’s my opinion and am thinking he must  eventually rename them later on at some point, but don’t quote me on this.  Devly’s backstory and how he becomes the Captain and leader of Thorn’s Deadmen is interesting and we see how his life and Marcelina’s are twined together.  Their story at times felt rush to me, but eventually it did start to fall into place about halfway through the book.  It took awhile, but eventually I started to connect the dots and the information overload started to make sense, and the rest of the story just fell into place for me and carried me along to the end of the book.  To which like previous Kenyon books she leaves us hanging as to what’s in story for characters in the next installment. Particularly, a very intriguing Merman who has given himself up to save the life of a two important characters.  Again I won’t give away anything….(evil laughter rings throughout the rafters of The Reading Café)

Deadmen Walking is an interesting installment in the Kenyon paranormal universe.  You just need to have some patience and a large pad of paper beside you for note taking to help keep everything in perspective and in order.  LOL!!  I’m looking forward to the continuation of this one and hopefully seeing how it will eventually weave into her current storylines. 

Reviewed by Marcie

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