S M Reine

The Descent Series

The Darkest Gate

Sarah Escorsa

➽ And the moral of this rereread is: Ah, to kill that bitch Stephanie slightly dead with my bare little serrated pincers! Now that would be Super Extra Blissful (SEB™) indeed!



Ain't I Super Extra Cute (SEC™) when I get all homicidal and stuff?

💌 A very private message to Dear Anthony: You aggravate the fish out of my nefarious little self, please go away. Actually no, don't go away, just die a little. Thank thee kindly.



[January 2017]

❣ Marital Buddy Read (MBR™) with my Dearest of Wives (DoW™), aka Choko ❣

Previous rating: 3.5 stars. For the books 1-3 bundle as a whole and stuff.
New rating: 4.5 stars. Because euraka I saw the light and all that crap.

How could I ever think I'd be disappointed if I reread this series?! I really am a worthless, pitiful, undeserving miscreant. I should go hide in one of my Undersea Caves of Shame (UCoS™) or something. Because this series right here? It is, hands freaking shrimping down, the mostest darkest, twistiest, unsettlingest (yes, this is a word) UF series I have ever read. And the bloody, weird, disturbing stuff gets beautifully worse better with each instalment. This sure ain't no pastel-colored rainbow world, my Little Barnacles! And it's kinda sorta marvellously marvellous, if you ask me.



Elise Kavanagh, our resident badass, is so much more than you friendly neighbourhood ass-kicking chick. Mainly because she's not friendly. At all. And the girl is so beautifully screwed up, it makes me want to throw a Let's Butcher Fluffy Bunnies Celebration Party (LBSFBCP™). Yeah, Elise is that shrimping amazing. She is raw. She is anti-social. She is a delightfully ruthless slaughtering machine. She is a puzzle. She is a mistery. I am SO in love. And even though I already know why Elise is, you know, the way she is and stuff, because I sorta kinda already read this series and stuff, I just could not help being gripped to the tip of my lovely little toes by the story once again. The way Reine builds up the tension and puts her intrigue together by giving you little glimpses of Elise's past is pretty shrimping awesome. The woman's vicious, too, and loves to torture her readers and sucker-punch them repeatedly, à la Wicked Pippa DaCosta (WPDC™). And since I love to suffer and to have the little heart that I don't have properly squeezed and broken and crushed and stuff, I tend to somewhat enjoy Reine's Scrumptious Manhandling (RSM™).



You know what else I love? Most of the characters in the series are wonderfully exasperating, and you find yourself wanting to chop them into tiny little pieces more than once. Okay, some of them you just want to die a slow, horrible, painful and, if possible, slightly agonizing death, like Stephanie the Bitch from Hell who Needs to Croak Yesterday Please (StBfHwNtCNYP™). Others you just want to strangle heartily because they are Pathetic Specimens of Total Lameness (PSoTL™) *waves at Anthony* Then you have the Slap Worthy Idiots (SWI™) like Betty the Airhead. And THEN, you have James. The kind of guy you want to build a torture chamber in your basement for. So you can torment him for all of eternity. And so he can persecute you right back. Because you love to hate him. And hate to love him. And because tough love, it's a very hot thing.



And you know what else else I love? This world. So original. So creative. So gritty. So intense. So bloody shrimping fantastic. I mean, have you ever read a story that covers creeptastic demon overlords, Mary Poppins bodies, godslayers, casino show choreographing, giant spiders, piggybacking, freaking paper magic, mirrored upside down cities and enslaved, vicious angels (which, incidentally, totally deserve to be enslaved because, as you are well aware, all angels are assholes)? No you haven't. Trust me on that one. I've read lots of UF crap over the years (view spoiler)[someone please give me a medal (hide spoiler)] and I'm telling you, my Tiny Decapods, you have NEVER read something like this. And given what awaits in the upcoming instalments, you might not want to, either. Because this series ain't for the faint of heart, my Lovely Arthropods, and things are about to get wayyyyyyyy more disturbing. And dark. So lusciously dark and twisted this book should be mandatory reading for all Historical Romance Loving Freaks (HRLF™) out there. So that they'd be scarred for life and stuff. Because yes, this series is THAT gloriously evil and grim and stuff. 

» And the moral of this Oh My Freaking Shrimp Why Did I Wait so Long to Reread this Bloody Amazing Series Stupid Stupid Sarah (OMFSWDIWsLtRtBASSSS™) is: S.M. Reine, I love thee. QED and stuff.

Original Super Extra Crappy Non Review (OSECNR™) for books 1-3 in this series can be found here. I wouldn't read it if I were you, but it's your life and you're most welcome to waste it as you see fit.

· Book 0.6: Deadly Hearts ★★★★★
· Book 1: Death's Hand ★★★★ 
· Book 3: Dark Union ★★★★ 
· Book 4: Damnation Marked ★★★★
· Book 5: Dire Blood ★★★★
· Book 6: Defying Fate ★★★★★
· Book 7: Paradise Damned ★★★★★

The Darkest Gate The Descent Series

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