Review // Dark Purity by Aja James

Sorin knew that he was forever lost to this male.
This man who was his Bane, yet also not.
This man who was equal light and darkness.
Joy and pain.
An infinite myriad of experiences and emotions.
He enthralled Sorin, body, heart and soul.

──────　♔　──────

Dark Purity by Aja James

Pure/Dark Ones #17
Release - May 15, 2021
Genre - Paranormal Romance / second chance / MM romance
Primarily Dual POV - 3rd person (with other brief POVs)
Heat Level - 5 out of 5 / several scenes
Format/Source - ebook borrowed from Kindle Unlimited
Page Count - 396
Publisher - Indie

An unlikely hero…

He was once known as the Creature. An indefinable “it.” His life had never been his own, used and abused by despicable beings. Worst of all, he never knew himself.

Despite his tortured past, despite the darkness inside him, he has chosen a brighter path. He has a name—Erebu. His first stand was to defy the Master who created him to save his son. But instead of destroying the greatest enemy of all, he himself was destroyed…

An unlikely love…

From distant lands, across fathomless seas, someone heard the Creature’s cries. He gave Ere a second chance, a miraculous rebirth that came at a steep cost, remaking Ere with his own breath, body, blood and soul.

This mysterious savior has a past of his own to face, and a future to define and embrace. Will Ere be able to find him in time? Will they forge their path together or pursue separate destinies?

An end and a beginning…

No matter their decision, one thing is certain: they must work together to unite all Kinds if they have a hope of defeating their ultimate nemesis.

The end is near…

And so is a brand new beginning.

Purchase Links

Amazon CA * Amazon US
(free to read with Kindle Unlimited)

My Two Cents

I tried to read this book very slowly, but found it so hard to pace myself because it was DELICIOUS!! Let it be said... I loved Ere and Sorin together!

Not that I'm surprised.

To love Ere is to love anyone he happens to love. The list isn't large, but those he cares for are the best of the best and Sorin definitely deserved his place.

I fell in love with Sorin right from the start. How could I not? Oh. My. Gosh! I can't get over how Ere 'waxed poetic' about each part of his physical form, such as...

But gods! That was the hottest forearm he’d ever seen in all his life! It was forearm porn as far as he was concerned. Maybe he should write to PornHub when he got home and request that they add this kink to their suite of offerings. Must be an untapped market out there if looking at a stranger’s half-naked limb could get an avowed asexual like him to perk up with reluctant, disorienting interest. It would be a public service.

and...

High, sharp, perfect cheekbones. Were there any cheekbones ever created on a man that was ever this perfect? The answer was a resounding: hell no! There never had been and never would be cheekbones this ridiculously perfect. If he was the size of an ant, he’d cliff-dive off those cheekbones and hope to be caught upon those beautiful, full lips. If they weren’t as soft as they looked and he broke upon impact, it would be a glorious, worthwhile sacrifice. Maybe he’d get lost in the beard instead. Maybe he’d root around in the thick, forest-like maze and never come out.

I was enamored by the connection these two males shared, even if Ere couldn't remember why they shared it. I couldn't get over the way his body reacted. Or the way his thoughts were obsessed with Sorin, making him feel things he's never felt before. Or the way his insatiable need for the man made him crave to be close to him. Well, I guess it went both ways.

Seriously, when I was only 16% in, I was a true goner for these males. I still can't get over how succinctly Sorin summed up everything awesome that made up Ere.

His “bane” never changed. It didn’t matter how many incarnations he’d had since Sorin first knew him. He could be incredibly thoughtful, sensitive, playful and mischievous. He could be the worst prankster there ever existed, causing no end of trouble for Sorin, but he was never purely “bad.” He’d been a child, wild and free, innocent to the ways of the world. So fearless and bright and beautiful he took Sorin’s breath away. He still did. But now, there was darkness too. Bottomless depths of it.

And how could I possibly not love how fiercely each male loved the other. Whether it was Sorin wanting to heal everything that was broken in Ere, or Ere wanting to give joy to overcome the sorrow he felt from Sorin's soul, these males gave their all to each other.

He wanted to hunt down the monsters who had hurt his bane. Tear them limb from limb and smelt them to ashes with the fury of his flames. He wanted to fix Ere’s brokenness from the inside out. Help him reclaim his true self.

and...

“Solemnity.” Before the word was fully out of his mouth, Sorin’s own covered his, swallowing the last syllable. It wasn’t a tentative kiss. There was nothing tentative about the male, Ere quickly realized. He wanted; he took. Ere suspected he only ever asked for permission with him. And that made all the difference in the world.

and...

Sorin’s kiss began as a desperate assault, his bold tongue driving into Ere’s mouth. Plundering. Staking. Taking. Ere desperately sucked on him in return, wanting to keep him inside, savoring every taste, wanting to bite him and devour him, his need was so great. And then, the male suddenly pulled his head back. Perhaps, like Ere, he simply needed to gulp in oxygen. But at the moment, Ere didn’t think he cared if he died of suffocation if this was how he went. His first real kiss! And he was fucking awesome at it! Sorin’s body didn’t lie. Couldn’t lie. He was hard enough to pound coal into diamond.

Aside from these two, there were other things that were explored with this story, such as The Dandelions. These people were the result of experiments and I was hoping to get more of them before The End. For example, Clara and her adopted daughter Annie were 'experiments'. So was Ariel. The Tech Master. Who else was there and how would they have featured in some way? What powers would they each develop?

I think my biggest shock, apart from the fact that Benji's heritage wasn't explored (I really wish my questions from the last book were answered), was the fact that Lilith/Wan'er/Fox Spirt was one of the original Twin Goddesses. What?! This evil chick was the Dark Goddess? I loved how the author created her back story, including her punishment to experience humanity as a lesser being. She obviously learned nothing, and her end was well deserved, and the author did an incredible job building and building and building to the ultimate climax of this story.

I found so much of this story simply beautiful and I adored how devoted these characters were to each other. I'm in love with the way this author captures romance and blends it so well with mythology and suspense. I'm at once thrilled and broken after experiencing this series. Thrilled that I got the chance to read it and broken because this particular journey is over. I don't want to say goodbye!!

Check out the previous books:

Quick Peek

Before he even arrived at the table, the words he’d formulated in his head to say were already spilling out of his mouth.

“Welcome to Drink of Me. May I take your—”

The words stuck in his throat and died a hasty death when the stranger turned away from the window to face him, spearing his feet into the floor with invisible stakes with those unforgettable gold eyes.

“You,” Ere breathed.

The man called “Soren” merely stared at him, silent and brooding.

Well, Ere didn’t know if he was in fact brooding, but he had a “Heathcliff” look about him, all stormy and dark, filled with oceans-worth of emotions and unspoken turmoil.

Ere wanted to smack himself.

The purple prose in his mind was annoying as hell! But he just couldn’t seem to stop the melodramatic twists and turns of his fucked-up imagination.

“What are you doing here?”

He didn’t actually expect an answer, since the man hadn’t spoken a single word since their encounter yesterday. So he was knocked literally off his feet when the stranger said:

“Hungry.”

That voice!

For the love of Loki’s hairy balls, that voice!

It was fathoms deep, resonant, but smoky and husky at the same time, raspy and rough. Tinged with an erotic accent when he spoke.

(Yes, he meant erotic and exotic. Accents could be erotic, Ere was absolutely certain, because this guy’s voice conjured all kinds of carnal cravings and sinful deeds).

About the Author

Aja James just completed the Pure/ Dark Ones paranormal-fantasy romance series in 2020. If you want your heart battered, bruised, shattered and skewered, then put back together in the most glorious ways, check out the series below. Every couple gets an HEA, but they fight like hell for it on the way.

Aja is now working on her new series, Dragon Tails, because dragons are her favorite shifters of all!

Visit https://aja-james.blog/ for more information!