Book Review: Dance with the Devil - by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Synopsis: Dance With the Devil is #6 in Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark-Hunters series. Zarek is kind of an anti-hero. He is a rogue Dark-Hunter who has been woefully misjudged for a crime he can't remember committing. He has been exiled for several hundred years to Alaska to live alone in a tiny hovel on the tundra. All the other Dark-Hunters, squires, and pretty much everybody else he runs into hate his guts. So he doesn't waste his time trying to endear himself to others. Astrid, our heroine, is a demigoddess who has been sent down from Olympus to judge Zarek to decide whether he is truly guilty and should be sentenced to die. Daughter to the goddess of justice, Thetis, and sister to the Fates, Astrid is literally blind when she meets Zarek. Of course, during their time together trapped in a little cabin in the arctic, she comes to discover that he is not the monster everyone thinks he is.

I can't really do this book justice. It is probably my favorite of all the Dark-Hunter novels. Zarek's story is absolutely gut-wrenching. I misted up and got all sniffly several times while reading this one. He suffered so much in life and then suffered even more as a Dark-Hunter. His character is really pretty complex. True, he's a real jerk to just about everyone around him, including Astrid. But it's not just that he's bitter and resentful of how he's been treated. He really believes that he does not deserve to be treated any better. He just doesn't care about himself or anything else anymore. Enter Astrid, who helps him see that he is worth something after all. And I like that even though Zarek is redeemed, he still maintains a good bit of his in your face attitude. It's nice to see an author who is not afraid to make a hero out of a guy who is a real asshole.

LibraryThing rating: 5 stars (but I'd give it 6 if I could!)