Title: The Dark Path
Author: Luke Romyn
Website of Author:
www.thedarkpathnovel...
Website of Publisher:
www.wildchildpublishing.com/
Genre: Horror
Publication date: 2009
ISBN -13: 978-1-935013-93-8
Length: 154 pages
Format: eBook
Reviewer: Clayton Bye
www.claytonbye.com
Alternative-Read.com
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The Dark Man is coming, and those in the know are ever so glad it’s not for them. Also known as Vain, he’s an assassin of the highest order. A visit from The Dark Man is the same as a visit from death.
There are a number of reasons The Dark Man is named Vain. The author will explain the most obvious one, so I won’t spoil the surprise. I don’t know if he meant it or not, but the author’s choice of name for his assassin also fits the Latin origin of the word vain: empty, without substance. For Vain truly is empty. He has blocked out his previous life so well, nothing remains but a few nightmare images which visit him every night. He’s emotionless, killing without compassion, fear, joy or remorse. Vain doesn’t even use the money he gets for his work. He simply kills: it’s not only what he does, it’s who he is.
So, when a man named Priest (are you getting the feeling we’re dealing with archetypes here?) ruthlessly breaks through Vain’s inner armour, reminding him of the good man he once was, in order to enlist his help in saving a boy who is the next messiah, we hold our breath and wait.
The Dark Path doesn’t disappoint. Luke Romyn has written a story about redemption earned. Vain, The Dark Man, takes an equally dark path to hell and back in his efforts to protect a child from certain death. The assassin also fights a metaphorical as well as an actual battle for his soul and for the power to fight his enemies: demons, hell-spawned beasts, the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse and the devil’s machinations.
Romyn’s story is brutal, to the point and is told in a way that keeps you from comfortably assuming the antihero will win the day and, thus, his personal redemption, right up to and including the end of the book.
If you like a fast moving, thrilling fantasy that keeps you thinking, then The Dark Path by Luke Romyn belongs on your bookshelf.
Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye 2010
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I read THE DARK PATH by Luke Romyn and was sadly disappointed. Vain is an assassin who is placed in the position of protecting a young boy, Sebastian, against a cult known as the The Souls of Sordarrah and a group known as the The Four, are driven to sacrifice the boy in order to raise the demonic lord Sordarrah from the pits of Hell.
ReplyDeleteI was expecting so much more after reading a few of the marketing releases available on line. I have read and edited many horror novels and books about the paranormal over the years and this one doesn’t even begin to stack up. The storyline is clumsy, the characters forgettable, and the writing is amateurish and wordy. As a professional Copyeditor, I would not recommend buying this book.
As an avid reader of horror novels, I was hoping to be blown away by THE DARK PATH, by author Luke Romyn. In the book, an assassin named Vain is forced into protecting a young boy, Sebastian, against a cult of demons attempting to sacrifice the boy in order to raise a demonic lord from Hell.
ReplyDeleteI will say that the story keeps moving forward pretty well and every scene furthers the plot of the book. But, I found the scene descriptions wordy and hard to visualize. The character descriptions are decent but I had difficulty connecting with Vain, the assassin, and Sebastian, the boy he is trying to save. As a reader, I want three-dimensional characters that I relate to, care about, and that “stay with me” after I finished the book. I definitely didn’t have this experience with this novel.
In my opinion, there are much better horror novels available for readers to spend their hard earned money on and this one is definitely a “pass”. Spend your hard earned money elsewhere.
Thanks for opportunity to comment!