Reviewer: Casee
Born of Night (The League #1) by Sherrilyn Kenyon
Series: The League #1
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: September 29, 2009
Genres: Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy
Pages: 560
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Series Rating:

In the Ichidian Universe, The League and their ruthless assassins rule all. Expertly trained and highly valued, the League Assassins are the backbone of the government. But not even the League is immune to corruption . . .

Command Assassin Nykyrian Quikiades once turned his back on the League―and has been hunted by them ever since. Though many have tried, none can kill him or stop him from completing his current mission: to protect Kiara Zamir, a woman whose father's political alliance has made her a target.

As her world becomes even deadlier, Kiara must entrust her life to the same kind of beast who once killed her mother and left her for dead. Old enemies and new threaten them both and the only way they can survive is to overcome their suspicions and learn to trust in the very ones who threaten them the most: each other.

Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m a fan of Sherrilyn Kenyon. As much as I’ve felt let down over the years, I keep going back. It’s a sickness. For every three or four books, she has a good one. Those are the ones I can’t miss. Born of Night wasn’t exactly one of those books, but it did show me another side of Kenyon that I didn’t know was there. I thought she was all Dark-Hunter, Dream-Hunter, Were-Hunter…you get my drift. No, she’s also sci-fi and fantasy.

Born of Night introduces the reader to the Ichidian Universe and The League of Assassins. The thing is, it didn’t. There was almost zero world building in this book. Not that the book was horrible; it wasn’t. I did like it, but I would have liked to have known more about the Ichidian Universe and The League. All I came out of the book knowing about The League is that they’re a scary bunch of Assassins that you can never leave because they’ll kill you if you’ll try.

This was Nykyrian and Kiara’s story. The Sentella is a group of outlaws that try to police the League. At least that’s what I got from it. Kiara is a Princess from a planet called Gouran. She had a contract on her life and was kidnapped (the why wasn’t explained until ¾ of the way through the book). Nykyrian and his band of misfits (that what I started thinking of them as) saved her from certain death. Nykyrian is the only League Assassin to ever escape and he has a price on his head that anyone would kill for. He is so emotionless and has such little faith in humanity that he wouldn’t be surprised if any of his fellow brothers or sisters in the Sentella turn him in. Because of that, he is constantly on watch.

When they save Kiara, it is his worst nightmare. She is the only person, dead or alive that has ever brought emotion out in him. A beautiful dancer, he has snuck into her shows and she has something in her that he can’t extinguish from his thoughts of the feelings that he thought he had long ago gotten rid of.

Kiara is at first disgusted by Nykyrian, until she gets past her prejudice and realizes he is a man that had a horrific childhood and came out a good man on the other side. She has no idea how she could have overlooked that and looked at him like everyone else, but she is ashamed and she makes sure he knows it.

The thing I didn’t like about Kiara was how wishy-washy she was about Nykyrian. One moment she would accept him for who she was, but then she would see who he really was and what he would do to protect her and she would be horrified and call him a monster. She really made me want to slap her. I understood what and why she felt the way she felt, but she really needed to go one way or the other. And this didn’t happen once or twice. It happened multiple times.

Overall, I did enjoy the book enough to get the next book in the series. I’m looking forward to (hopefully) seeing some more world building. I have complete faith in Sherrilyn Kenyon.

Rating 3.5 out of 5.

Reading Order

Born of Night
Born of Fire
Born of Ice
Born of Shadows
Cloak and Silence
Born of Fury
Born of Defiance
Born of Betrayal
Born of Legend