3.75/5 Esta muy entretenido. Es un relato corto que mantiene bastante bien el ritmo y tiene mucha accion.Mas que el romance, lo que mas me ha gustado es todo el cambio de escenarios y malvados que aparecen "de nuevas" en esta historia ya que, en mi opinion, dara un cambio al desarrollo del resto de la saga y a nuevos objetivos a derrotar. (me gustan estos cambios , crean nuevas inquietudes a la trama )

The Dark-Hunter book that fell in the shadow of the awesome Acheron was always going to have a tough time. Kenyon took a risk and gave us something different: Stryker's story. Surprisingly it really worked and I loved this! Stryker is the evil Lord of the Daimons. His kind prey on human souls to elongate their own cursed lives and hare the very creatures the Dark-Hunters were created to fight! He has been the mortal enemy of pretty much every Hero and Heroine we have read about in the series so far. Not a shock given that he hates the human race with a passion, wants to kill the God who's powers and life force are joined to that of the sun(his father, Apollo), and wants to break the Great Destroyer(Apollymi) free from the Atlantean hell realm so she can wreak her vengeance upon the world. Given all that you would think that Kenyon would have a tough job telling a romance story about him and convincing the reader to stop hating him for long enough to care about that story. She managed both though and this turned out to be another great instalment of the series. Needing allies in his war with the Dark-Hunters Stryker frees an ancient enemy of the Gods upon the condition that the primal God, War, kills Acheron and Nick in return for his freedom. This attack on Acheron sparks Artemis into a rage and she sends one of her own assassins out to put a stop to Stryker once and for all. That assassin is none other that Stryker's ex-wife Zephyra. The ex-wife he abandoned back in his mortal days and who has loathed him ever since. Her arrival in Katateros is like a shock through Stryker's heart and he is forced to confront feelings he has not dealt with since his mortal days. I quite liked the story. Stryker is still a villain but it was hard not to root for him and Zephyra after hearing the story of their past. They made a good couple and will be a team the Dark-Hunters will have to be extra wary of in the future. There was also a tiny hint that there is still a chance for the pair to find some redemption in the future. Outside of the main love story we also got a ton of additional happenings. We got two major happenings that should have a big impact of the whole direction of the future books in the series. One involved the Daimons and the other was connected to Nick. We also got to meet a few interesting new characters. Most interesting was the mysterious Jared, but I also quite liked Stryker's daughter and the Daimon who was his first in command. I'd like to see more of all three characters in future books. On top of that we got a few more scenes with Savitar and Apollymi, and I swear I'm detecting some romantic tension between the pair! All in all I found this to be a surprisingly enjoyable tale. Rating: 4.5 stars.Audio Note. This one was narrated by William Dufris . It would have been better if Holter Graham or Fred Berman was the narrator as they both do a fantastic job with the Dark-Hunter stories and are surprisingly in sync when it comes to pronunciations and character interpretations. That is not to say Dufris did a bad job. I thought he gave a decent performance, the only let down in his performance was the different way he pronounced a ton of familiar names.

So Stryker is a vengeful jerk and he found his perfect match in Zephyra his first wife (who he had abandoned a billion years ago when his father threatened them).Sorry if Kenyon was trying to soften me towards him or her. This book did nothing to make me like Stryker more - he still wants to destroy mankind for revenge/jealousy and he still wants to kill Acheron and Nick. Zephyra seemed to be a good person when she was human but she's become just as vengeful. She has good reason to be mad but blaming mankind for the actions of a few terrible people seems ridiculous. Hello APOLLO is the one to blame for most of these problems. Plus she keeps a guy chained up in basement and tortures him because he betrayed his kind a few thousand years ago.Luckily the book was not very long, so I didn't have to deal with two characters I disliked too long. Plus there were important plot developments to keep me interested. I loved the cameos of other characters and we learned new things about some of them. Nick seemed to soften a tad but he's still an idiot for blaming Acheron for his mother's death. I liked Jared's slug demon, I hope we see him again sometime soon. and Simi as usual had the best lines in the book.

Reviewed for THC ReviewsThe last full-length, Christmas-themed book in the Dark-Hunter series was just OK for me, and perhaps for that reason, I went into reading One Silent Night with low expectations. The fact that Stryker had been an antagonist in several past Dark-Hunter books and my uncertainty about him being the hero of his own story only added to my lack of anticipation. Well, maybe that was a good thing, because I ended up finding this book to be pretty entertaining. Admittedly, the mythology was rather muddled and overly complex, and often events occur for the sake of the plot, two things that are typical for Sherrilyn Kenyon's books. I often find both annoying, but in this case, I mostly ignored them and just tried to go with the flow. Part of what made it so enjoyable, though, were the inclusion of several other characters we already know and the introduction of a couple of new characters, all of whom I liked very much. Usually having the action and POV straying away from the main couple this much dilutes the romance for me, but this time, I found it to be a plus. So, overall, I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I liked this story.As I mentioned, Stryker has been the villain in several previous Dark-Hunter books, so I wasn't sure how I would like him as a hero. Oddly enough, he still isn't quite what I would call heroic even in his own book. I guess I would have to say I'm ambivalent about him even after reading his story. He starts out by unleashing a creature who is more evil than he is, all for the purpose of killing Acheron and Nick, the two people whom he hates the most. By the end, he has realized the error of his ways, and must strike up a temporary truce with his mortal enemies in order to defeat this evil creature and save the life of someone he loves. There's a part of me which understands that many of the things Stryker does are to protect his Daimons from his father's terrible curse, but another part of me feels like he's done some pretty reprehensible things for which he needs to pay penance. Unfortunately, that didn't happen here, and I can't say that I'm entirely surprised. Based on the way things ended, I'm sure he's going to be back to antagonize Acheron and his Dark-Hunters some more in future books. This was somewhat disappointing, because if a bad guy is going to be redeemed into a hero, I like to see him get his comeuppance and know that he's going to be a good guy in the future. As a romantic hero, he was perhaps a little better. His teenage marriage to Zephyra ended with him walking out on her, but we get to see how much that tore him up inside and that he only did it to protect her from his father's wrath. When it comes to Zephyra he has a definite soft spot and would do anything to win her back, even promising to allow her to execute him without a fight if she isn't convinced of his love for her within two weeks time. She's the only woman he's ever truly loved, and he always treats her with the utmost gentleness and respect. I also liked that he was even off-put by some of the seemingly bad things that she did, which I thought showed him to have some honor and scruples, even if only in small measure. For these reasons and because he showed a few other vulnerabilities, I couldn't help liking him... somewhat. However, I can't go so far as to say that I fell for him in the way I like to fall for romance heroes, because I simply couldn't forget all the bad things he's done to characters I do love.Zephyra is a definite alpha female who I felt was a good match for Stryker, but maybe that's because she can be just as ruthless as he is if not more so. Although she's loathe to admit it, she was hurt deeply by Stryker's abandonment of her centuries ago and is still holding a major grudge for it. Throughout that time, Zephyra has done what she had to do to survive, some of which hasn't been all that pretty. From the moment she sees Stryker again, she's ready to kill him on the spot. It's only her daughter's voice of reason and her belief that perhaps they can work together toward a common goal, that stays her hand... temporarily. Stryker also offers her his tempting bargain to allow him to win her back, which initially, she thinks will be a piece of cake. She just didn't count on Stryker getting under her skin again. I admired Zephyra for being so protective of her daughter, but she's such a tough girl, I had a hard time relating to her on a more personal level. There have been some kick-butt heroines in this series, but for the most part they've always had a softer side, which is something I never really saw much of in Zephyra. Like Stryker, I too was put off by her torture and enslavement of someone who didn't entirely seem to deserve it. I'm willing to admit though, that maybe I don't know enough about this character yet to understand why Zephyra mistreats him, but I really liked him and wanted it to stop. Because of this, I would have to say that Zephyra is the most hard-ass heroine I've read so far in this series. At the same time though, I'm also willing to admit that perhaps this was pure genius, because it made me feel that Styker wasn't quite so bad after all and that they deserved each other... err... were well matched.:-)Since neither Stryker nor Zephyra quite made it onto my favorite heroes and heroines list, it was really the secondary characters who made this book so entertaining for me. I was worried that after Ash found his HEA in his own book we might not see much of him anymore, but he plays a prominent role in this story. Nick is a key player too. He's still finding his way after all the recent events in his life, and even more changes occur for him here. He's still holding a huge grudge against Ash and is on a vendetta to kill him, which I can't help feeling is a little unreasonable on his part. Both Nick and Ash screwed up, but considering that Ash has apologized for his part in the death of Nick's mom and never intentionally intended to hurt her, I feel like Nick should just get over it. His old mentor, Menyara, tells him as much, and it looks like the changes Nick experiences in this book may be putting him on that path. I certainly hope so at least. Tory and Simi are also there beside Ash, and Savitar shows up a few times to lend his support as well. So do Alexion and Danger (Sins of the Night), and Sin and Katra (Devil May Cry). Stryker's son, Urian, is in a couple of scenes, but there's no happy father/son reunion, as Urian understandably hasn't forgiven his father for killing his wife (or him for that matter). We're also introduced to a new character, Jared, who I have a feeling is going to play a big role in upcoming books of the series. I fell for him almost instantly. He also has a little demon companion named Nim (much like Simi is to Ash), who is just too cute for words. I can't wait to see more of this pair, and hope that there might be a book for Jared at some point in the future.The other thing that made this book enjoyable and one that Dark-Hunter fans shouldn't miss is the advancement of the overall story arc. As I mentioned there were major changes for Nick, which I'm sure will affect future books. There are also some big changes afoot for Stryker and the Daimon army he leads. With Zephyra's help they realize it's possible to do something they'd never before considered, because they thought it would mean death and/or enslavement. I'm certain this will make things much more difficult for the Dark-Hunters from here on out. Stryker, Ash, and Nick may have taken the saying, The enemy of my enemy is my friend to a whole new level in this book, but it's most likely going to be business as usual by the next one with a new twist added. The one small downside to the story was that the Christmas theme was more of an afterthought rather than a integral part of the narrative. The only nods to the holiday season were Ash and Tory decorating a Christmas tree and a couple of mentions of Stryker's scheme bringing the world to an end for the humans on Christmas Day. In the grand scheme of things that was a pretty small complaint though. Even if I couldn't entirely get on board with Stryker and Zephyra being heroic characters, they exhibited just enough vulnerability and sympathy factor to make me like them well enough. All the other tidbits added to the series story arc also made One Silent Night a nice addition to the Dark-Hunter series. After reading Acheron, I wasn't sure if I was going to continue with the series, but this book has piqued my interest sufficiently to make me stick with it for a while longer.

No esta mal pero despues de Aqueron...