I received an advance reader copy in exchange for a fair review. Enjoyed the book. I haven't read many vampire books but this one was good. The hate between Benjamin the hunter, and Tzadkiel the hunter who killed his family and caused the lose of his eyes, is intense but yet there is an underlying need for the other and a love that binds them together. I would recommend this book.

this book was downloaded in error-apologies for the mistake.

On this occasion I shan't be leaving a review. Thank you for the opportunity.

Surrender the Dark by Tibby Armstrong was a dark foray into the underbelly of what you think you know and what you discover for yourself. This world of vampires and magic is so vivid that I couldn’t help but be sucked into their story.

There’s no bravery in hate…Only in kneeling to that which frightens you most.

When I think of enemies-to-lovers, I think of shared animosity and despair, the misunderstandings and the drama. Surrender the Dark kicks it up a notch by giving us mortal enemies filled with hate and anger and grief. Benjamin is taught from a young age the evilness of vampires. When he’s called upon by his family to act upon one with violence, Benjamin’s actions cost him dearly. Blind and bitter, Benjamin vows to kill all vampires.

Only he never expected the one vampire who haunts his past.

To say Benjamin is a little angry is a colossal understatement. All Benjamin has to go on years later is his own mettle with a vampire’s words for vengeance hanging over his head. Because of that, Benjamin’s reckless. Half the time he’s drunk out of his mind and others, mired in self-pity. I didn’t quite know if I liked him, but I respected him. He’s able to turn his own disability into a weapon and a strength. But there’s so much hate he has to work through.

Your entire personality is like a hand job in a cold shower.

Then there’s the War King, Tzadkiel. It takes decades for him to heal after what Benjamin’s family did to him. He vows to rise to power and then vanquish his sworn nemesis. Tzadkiel is the epitome of a hero for me. Sure, he’s got his own hate to work through but he also has a underlying sense of honor and loyalty.

Then the plot unfolds another layer, a foe rises and Tzadkiel slowly gets to know the soul hidden beneath Benjamin’s protective shell. They definitely don’t like each other, and I loved seeing the slow awareness building. Watching these two together was like watching a fireworks display. It’s sparks and madness and mayhem.

Ms. Armstrong has created a world that enthralled me and other characters I can’t wait to dive deeper into. I highly recommend this one for any paranormal readers who love a good vendetta plot.

5 Blood Feud Stars!

2.5 Stars

Surrender the Dark is the first of a new series: The Dark, that told stories of the vampires Dragoumanos brothers set on modern Boston. It's the story of betrayal, honor, love and redemption. Pretty interesting take on the supernatural world, actually, especially the vampire one. It got interesting when the pairing characters were from opposite camps, the vampire and their hunter. Not only that, theirs is the sort of deadlock over past hurt that left physical mark on both. That's a huge, HUGE, obstacle to overcome.

I felt sorry for the characters for the trauma they had gone through, and the after effects. Even so, I was not really charmed by them - Benjamin struck me as boastful and reckless, yet I didn't see said deadly-skilled hunter reputation on page; and Tzadkiel sounded guileless and easy to dupe for a War King. The inner turmoil over their attractions and repulsions felt realistic, though. Although, the hot and cold conflict was a wee bit excessive after a while. I mean, I understand where both men came from; but there were the whole other stuff of trying to defeat a dangerous witch, dubious ally to work on, dispirited mora to take care of... I wish the story explored more on those to illustrate the bigger picture instead of only circled on Ben an Tzadkiel.

Granted, being a series with different pairing on each entry, the author might have planned to reveal the missing details for the next book. So of course I cannot expect every byplay told now, and spoil all the fun of the upcoming book. Still, I thought the showdown scenes were a bit lame for this kind of story - I mean, monsters and mayhem? Weren't they supposed to be epic?

All things aside, the approach on what's bygone be bygone between the MCs was pretty realistic. I liked that the characters' "battle scar" as proof of their strength (instead of "poof!" everything restored to previous condition). So, it's a pretty ups and downs experience for me reading this book. :)


Advanced copy of this book is kindly provided by the author/publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

If you like supernatural books then this may be right up your alley. I had a hard time connecting with the characters. Thecwriting wascreally solid but at times I felt lost. I enjoyed learning about this world and I think the next bookscwill be worth checking out.

It was good but the Greek history for Tzadakeil throw me a bit since I'm into Greek Mythology and what was written wasn't into the subject of mythology. Two mortal enemies will have to come together for a fight between two fae's and the vampires. This is a M/M with duel p.o.v. and a HEA for now.

Next one is the human/ nonhuman friend of Benjamin, Akito. I will look forward to reading that one when it comes out. I hope I get to read Benjamin lady childhood friend/ the daughter of the two battling fae Nyx.

I wanted to like this novel. It had a lot of elements that I enjoy in a novel such as being an urban fantasy, with supernatural elements, but unfortunately, I struggled through this one. I was very close to giving up on it, but I managed to persevere.

While Tibby Armstrong introduced a very interesting lore for vampires, this one went against most others. Instead of the usual Transylvanian legend, these vampires originated from the Greek Gods. Certainly not what I expect in a supernatural story. Perhaps if this had been better explained throughout the book it would have been better than just a snippet here and there.

Another aspect that irritated me was just how much was going on. There were many unanswered questions for me, and not just as a cliffhanger. I was also thoroughly irritated with the main character, Benjamin. He was a weak character that could not even give a good come-back.

The hate-to-love romance in this novel was bizarre because of the lack of transition, it was too insta-love for my taste.

Overall, I was not a fan of this novel and would not recommend it.

5++++++ STARS!!!

This is how you write Paranormal Romance.

I feel like I have been waiting a very long time for this book.

It had everything I love and crave in a Paranormal Romance plus some.

And let me tell you, that plus some blew me away. How the author managed to pull this off with the level of feeling I felt for both Benjamin and Tzadkiel blew my mind. For sure there had to be a bad guy. For sure I’d love one and hate the other. Mind blown that this is not at all what I felt.

I was intrigued about the world; fascinated by the connection; fearful of fate and totally moved by the sacrifice.

This book truly was brilliant in all the ways a Paranormal Romance should be. There should be a balance between the world building and the romance, and this perfected it. I loved how this wasn’t in your face insta-love, far from it. This was confusion, hate and desperation. It was lovely to behold.

I was totally caught up in the world in this book. Lions and tigers and bears oh my! Seriously. I love how all the different paranormal elements are accounted for. A whole different kind of world hiding in plain sight.

There isn’t anything I can think of that I didn’t like about this book aside from it ending.

Very well done PNR. Like I said, I have been waiting a long time for something just like this.

I will anxiously await more in this series.

~3.5~

The world building and writing in Surrender the Dark are exceptional. Some of the prose struck me as ornate, and I had a hard time getting into the book initially, but the more I read, the more I realized the word choices and cadence are appropriate to the story and characters.

This is an enemies-to-lovers story like no other. Benjamin and Tzadkiel don't merely annoy each other. They HATE each other, despise each other. They are blood enemies.

Benjamin's family killed Tzadkiel's brothers, and Benjamin, blinded by Tzadkiel as a child when he showed compassion for the captured vampire, has carried on the family legacy for two decades.

Benjamin is a vampire hunter; Tzadkiel, a vampire and War King.

This book is driven by a detailed, complex plot involving ancient feuds, alliances, and magic.

Benjamin and his best friends—Nyx, a witch/fae, and Akito, a human who desperately craves a superpower—find themselves fighting WITH Tzadkiel instead of against him.

There's nothing easy about Benjamin and Tzadkiel's relationship. This is not a sweet or easy romance. Indeed, this a paranormal suspense novel first; a romance a distant second.

The last few chapters are exciting and gripping. I LOVE the ending, and the sacrifices Benjamin and Tzadkiel make for each other.

While the epilogue doesn't tie up all loose ends (this is the first book in a series, after all), there's no doubt the MCs are enemies no longer. They are lovers, friends, family.

"You see me," Benjamin said. "The real me."

"I see you," Tzadkiel affirmed . . . "Hunter mine."

This is a striking story, and I fully understand the 5 star reviews. My rating is based on a personal preference for more romance (and more steam; I was really disappointed by how muted the sex scenes were).

The plot is heavy and complicated; the paranormal elements take up a lot of page time, and the relationship gets lost in the shuffle.

While I enjoyed "Surrender the Dark," I didn't totally *love* it as much as I'd hoped that I would.

For me, the story had so much world building, so many different things going on, that the romance aspect took a bit of a back seat.

I did like how Benjamin, blinded at age 8 while fighting a vampire, never came across as weak or a person to be pitied. Not once. He was a hunter and played the cards he'd been dealt.

And the 'War King', Tzadkiel, who'd lost his entire family over the millennia at the hands of Benjamin's family, was bound by both honor and vengeance, in equal measure, to ensure that justice was brought against those responsible.

Even if 'those responsible' turned out to be someone for whom he had growing feelings.

The game of cat and mouse between Tzadkiel and Benjamin was always entertaining; however, I truly wanted the story to focus (a lot) more on their feelings and budding attraction, which I found a bit minimal for my tastes.

My favorite parts of the story were where both Tzadkiel and Benjamin began to realize that their worlds weren't quite as black and white as they'd always thought. That, sometimes, mistakes are made, terrible ones, but even then, people can change and forgiveness earned.

The story was tight and well thought out, but the scope of this one was vast, so there were many, many pages spent to flesh out the world in which the hunters and vampires lived, going back roughly 400 years. As I said, lots of world building in this one.

Don't get me wrong, though. I was never bored. I just wished that the focus of the story had been a bit more on the feels between the MC's and less on past wars, marital problems between witches, and zombies.

So while I enjoyed this story, the title of 'Todd's favorite vampire story of all time' is still firmly held by Alexa Land's "The Tinder Chronicles." (That one's highly recommended, folks.) : )

Overall, I'd rate "Surrender the Dark" at around 3.75 stars and hope that future books in the series focus a teeny bit more on the feels and connections between the MC's.

Stunning, simply stunning. This book is a triumph, it takes a common trope - of vampires and vampire hunters, along with all associated paranormal species - and creates a unique exploration of their world in a strangely familiar, but still mysterious, modern Boston setting.

In both Benjamin and Tzadkiel, Tibby has crafted an enemies to lovers romance which is not only wholly believable, it is one which the reader wants to triumph. The UST in this book is delicious and when it finally bears fruit, the heat factor rockets through the roof.

The world building is brilliantly executed, there's never an info dump of exposition, instead the setting is allowed to gently reveal itself as you read it. There's enough mystery left to keep you reading and the touches of "real world" mythology were very clever.

I can't wait for the second and third books on this series to come out. Gorgeous cover, gorgeous book and an interesting look at how being sightless doesn't make you blind to life.

This story kicked me right in the heart-strings. This is a new author for me, so I was a little surprised. She put together a well-written, easy to love paranormal adventure that I couldn’t put down.

I have read a lot of paranormal stories over the years, and nothing about the genre surprises me anymore. I thought. This one did. Ms. Armstrong brought some brand new twists and turns that kept my interest high to the very end. Like many stories with a fresh look at the genre, it took a couple of chapters before I was truly into the story. Her characters are beautifully drawn with so many hidden aspects that I was wondering who would turn out to be the bad guy.

There is a lot of drama in this story…past alliances, past betrayals and centuries of hate and mistrust. As Benjamin and Tzadkiel struggle with their family histories, they also have to fight to keep Boston safe from an evil, evil Witch while trying to deal with their powerful attraction to each other. I think you will love these powerful men as I do. Pick up a copy and…

Enjoy!

2shay

This story appears to be the beginning of a new series, and as such, the author spends much of the time world-building. Unfortunately, I found this incredibly boring and after a while it became difficult to focus on the pages. From the blurb, I thought this would be a paranormal romance with the protagonists, Benjamin, the hunter, and Tzadkiel, the vampire king, immediately attracted to one another and eventually becoming lovers and going against the bad guy. In this case, the bad guy is The Morgan, the head of the witch coven and father of Benjamin’s BFF, Nix.

But the blurb doesn’t begin to describe the scope of this story. The book starts out with gruesome details of torture and then segues into deep animosity between the two chief protagonists and then—lo and behold—zombies enter the picture! To be honest, if I wasn’t reading this for review, I would have DNFed it at 33%. But I decided to persevere to the halfway mark before making a decision. And then I kept going since there was a hint of sexual attraction and it looked like there might be some deep emotional attraction between Benjamin and Tzadkiel in the future. Maybe there’d be a romance after all. And there was—though it was one of those push-and-pull romances where the characters continued to disappoint each other nearly to the end of the story.

The biggest issue for me was that I didn’t feel connected to either of the MCs, and quite frankly, I really didn’t care if they got together, or even if they won the battle and lived to see another day (or a sequel in this case.) I just didn’t feel the love between the two, and what’s more important to me—I didn’t get hooked by either character, so this one fell flat.

I did admire the writer’s craft and imagination in building this world, and the complexity of the hierarchy of paranormal beings and their powers. For that reason, I gave this two stars. It was okay. But overall, from the perspective that I would have enjoyed some bonding, especially after there was some blood exchanged, and I surely would have enjoyed caring about one or both characters—no. This story just didn’t do it for me.

This is my first book by Armstrong and it's not my typical read but I enjoyed it a lot. Read to dive into another .

While I'm no stranger to m/m in a contemporary setting, I'm slowly making strides to branch out and find m/m in other genres.. like paranormal or historical. So when I saw the premise for SURRENDER THE DARK to be a m/m enemies to lovers romance set against a dark world with paranormal elements, I was super excited.

Which makes my lack of overall joy pretty sad.

This is my first read by Armstrong and I'll admit after reading the premise upon initial request, I didn't refresh my memory by looking over the synopsis before opening up my kindle and went in rather blind (pardon the obvious joke). I don't think my issue was the writing so much -- though while there were some excellent lines, I did find in general it wasn't always engaging and did on occasion find myself confused -- as there was just a lot happening and I never felt like we were given time to focus on one aspect enough to truly understand or feel immersed in this world.

Not only do we have vampires but we have fae, were, zombies, hunters, angels (maybe!) and we're suddenly navigating treachery and conspiracy amongst those warring groups of supers. Some bits are explained along the way, some aren't who we're meant to believe they are, good isn't who you think, evil is subjective, we have to see beyond the surface even when we can't see it all, and then you have this epic hate-battling-lust dynamic between the two leads and.. suddenly with hardly any warning we're transitioning into tender feelings and remorse.. and..

Honestly, I think there's something to be said for some skimming and trying not to info-dump on a reader too much but you have to keep things a little simpler if you write under the assumption that your audience will just go with the flow. Just when I thought I got the hang of things, suddenly we're name-dropping gods and constellations and Helen of Troy and it just didn't all seem to fit.

I'm not sure if this is a series or not but I kind of like the idea of the unresolved-standalone. I appreciated the ending and how there were a lot of issues still at large, I totally loved that a certain character wasn't cured of what he lacked, but unfortunately the overall feeling this story left me with was just.. muddled. I'll admit that might be partially my own expectations (I think I expected more erotica and less mythology when I read the initial pitch and it's definitely the opposite) but also the fact is that sometimes striving to freshen an oversaturated market with a new take on an old favourite can backfire if you overdo and add too many unique characteristics into the kiln. It kinda comes out a blobby congealed mess.

From what I can see in the reviews posted here, I'm definitely in the minority, and that's fine. There are a lot of great bits that make up SURRENDER THE DARK. I just felt the main story kind of got overwhelmed in the details.

2.5 "your entire personality is like a hand job in a cold shower" stars

Surrender the Dark, Tibby Armstrong

Review from Jeannie Zelos book reviews

Genre: Romance

Vampires and Romance, check and request. sadly though its a fail for me. 
I didn't like the characters, didn't follow all the odd terms though most could be guessed at. I couldn't get a feel for Benjamin or Tzadkiel as people, didn't feel I knew them, and they certainly have a real hate going on.
I know its said there's a thin line between love and hate but here I just didn't feel the lust between them was genuine, they were both so mired in hatred.
Its that old bearing a grudge for history, we can't change it, both sets of ancestors did things that were wrong, but which they felt justified. someone has to make it stop sometime. 

There were things too that just didn't feel right for me, the times something weird, different, new comes up that gets them out of a tight spot, the way Benjamin's freinds take off when he gives them some patently untrue lies, I didn't feel they'd have believed him or abandon him like that.

I gave up about halfway through, just couldn't bring myself to read more.
Shame as it sounded perfect for me, and maybe sometime in the future I'll give it another go?
I can see others love it so perhaps I'm missing something, need to be in a different mindset to appreciate it? Who knows...it happens. Everyone likes different stories so some will love this, others like me won't connect. 

Stars: Two, just not the right story for me, but perfect for others. You choose.

ARC supplied for review purposes by Netgalley and Publishers

Surrender the Dark is the first book I have read by Tibby Armstrong. I really like her approach to the Vampire world and the way Tzadkiel and Benjamin relationship developed. I look forward to reading more by this author I enjoy her writing style

The story opens as an adorable eight-year old, Benjamin Fuller, is playing outside when lured into his house by his horrid uncle. He has to repeat to himself the nursery rhyme that gives him a bit of bravery to face up to his family's cruel legacy as hunter of vampires and the supernatural. Not only does the uncle kill, he steals and tortures, but when Benjamin has to put on a brave (sort-of) face and join in, all hell breaks loose. Fast forward into the future and the two are at each other's throats. Benjamin has become a full-grown hunter determined to find the vamp who scarred him for life and destroyed his family, while the vamp is wanting to restore his kingdom and power.

I probably don't need to say that he's not a cruel vampire who feeds on people like Dracula. That wouldn't work for this kind of book. The author isn't using anything new in terms of characters, but what does is write these well. Benjamin is annoying a little when he's stubborn to face the facts but he doesn't take THAT long and is reasonable. It was interesting with him being blind and how his world worked from without and within due to that.

The bar was his friend and even that was intriguing since the author didn't have throwaway characters - she gives the regular bartender a part, too. Benjamin's friends are an interesting blend as well - a witch who weakens her power with jewelry because she's too terrified of her parents, and a boy from a mental hospital who wants more than anything to have some kind of "superpower." The three bonded during breakdowns, but they bonded for life, so the set-up for all the connections between them made this more than a quick and easy lay of a book with little substance other than bedroom play and unrealistic love interest.

Imagine explaining that one to others - 'hey, these are my best friends. We met in the asylum.' Here's the guy I'm in love with - 'I met him when I was supposed to kill him.'

There's no quick dive into the sack either, thankfully, and the author makes sure to have plenty of other story to complement anything developing between the two main characters. There's the bigger picture of a bigger threat than either realized, the conflict between what needs to happen (a death) to fix something no matter what their feelings are, and a chase for a small mystery. If you're into paranormal romance of this type, this well-written story should have you glued. Characters aren't new but they are well done. Storyline keeps a story amidst a relationship that doesn't cause eyerolls. It's not all heat and spark - fortunately there's substance as well.

Wonderful read. This was so much more than the vampire story I was expecting. I often avoided vampire stories but I'm glad I took a chance on this one. I loved the characters and the mystery surrounding each of them. This new twist on the origins of vampires and their humanity, the fae, witches, shifters, and their coming battle created a story in which I enthusiastically read, and was disappointed when it ended. I look forward to reading the next book in the series.