Ever since I saw a teaser for Stygian's book I have been dying to read it. And Ms. Kenyon did not disappoint! One of my favorites in the series especially how it incorporated so many scenes from previous books.

I absolutely loved this book. I signed up for an ARC through netgalley. Unfortunately, I was not picked, so I waited for the book to be released. I personally enjoyed Stygian. I saw numerous complaints about rereading passages from other books. The thing is, Sherrilyn writes each book from a different character's perspective. Styling explains the differences in Urian, especially why Stryker cut his throat.

I'm a huge fan of the Dark Hunter series. I enjoyed reading Urian's story in this one but there's a lot of repetition of previous stories. Stygian is good for readers who haven't read the entire series or those, like me, who need a refresher. I'm hopeful that future books are more like the typical Sherrilyn Kenyon work that I love so much.

Another late review from me of a NetGalley freebie...

I read and loved a number of the early Dark Hunter books. I stopped reading not long after Acheron and this was the first one I'd picked up since. Unfortunately, I was forcibly reminded why I stopped reading. If you have read any of this series in the past, this book is going to seem VERY familiar to you. The plot has been rehashed as many times as it's possible to be reworked and has been published with a different pair of names each time.

This is intensely frustrating as the early books were so good and I know Ms. Kenyon can do better than this.

Loved reading these preview chapters of Stygian! Urian has long been an interesting character in the DarkHunter universe, so being able to read his origin story is great. So many characters that you see through the series and wonder about are explained here. I am sad to get to know his brothers since we already know their fates. It is nice to see his relationship with Stryker before it all goes to Hades, I hope that can be fixed at some point. The preview chapters only contain his history so I am looking forward to reading about what will happen to him in the present and his future. I am excited to finish the book in the near future! #StygianpreviewExcerpt #NetGalley

*Review copy provided by NetGalley, in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Was not quite as big of fan of this book as most of the others of the series. Still love Sherrilyn Kenyon!

I LOVE the dark hunter series. I love that we get all the characters mixed in through the series. It has been a while since I had read anything by Sherrilyn Kenyon, so although I know I have come across these characters in other books I couldn't remember exactly what had happened in those books. I do remember the ideas though, the general idea. I know that the author is going through personal issues in her life and I wish her all the best in her life and I also look forward to getting more stories. :)

She writes paranormal that can pull me in like very few can.

The story was very sweet, it was very heartbreaking as well there was so much that happened and over such a long time. I absolutely LOVE that the book was so long. I wish I could get books that long for every single book she writes. :) I enjoyed the book and look forward to the next.

Stygian: relating to the Styx River. Very dark.

I am a huge Fan of this series. I read pretty much all the books twice! Styxx and Acheron's books were my favorite. They both made me cry, yell, and feel anger. I was expecting the same thing with this book. And she delivered, BUT I felt the book was a little rushed. I wish it would have progressed a lot slower, but the book was very dark. There was some inconsistencies, but nothing to major to where it would stop me from loving the series overall.

I have been wanting to read Urian’s story for a long time now and when I realized that Stygian was his book, I was beside myself with excitement! I couldn’t wait to read it, but of course, being me, I didn’t immediately dive in as soon as I got it because I apparently like to torture myself, plus I also knew that I was in for a lot of angst — no one does angst like or better than Sherrilyn Kenyon — and I suppose I just wasn’t ready for that yet. It didn’t take me long to overcome that though and once I started Stygian, I hated whenever I had to stop. It was heart wrenching to read at times as I expected, but there was much about Stygian that was unexpected and I loved that. It was amazing to finally see Urian find his happiness — I just loved him and this book! Stygian was a long book to read, but I didn’t mind that, I loved getting to revisit this world and all the characters and spend so much time with them because it’s been too long. There were many elements to this book and it was full of twists and turns, secrets and revelations, and it left me with some questions and thoughts to ruminate over. Stygian made my heart ache, it brought tears to my eyes, it made me furious and made me yell. There were moments that were crushing to read , but there were also times that made me laugh and smile and just thoroughly entertained me. Stygian was wonderful and so worth the wait and I am beyond excited for the next book!

*****SPOILER ALERT*****

I think I’ve put off reviewing this book long enough. I’ve been avoiding it because I’ve had conflicting feelings about it. I have been a big fan of Miss Kenyon’s work since I discovered her books years back but as of late, her books are not as good as they used to be.

Now, don’t get me wrong, parts of this book were still good. To start, Stygian is the hero I expected him to be in more ways than one. His story is not as good as Acheron or Styxx but I liked him. He’s powerful, a bit broken, and sexy to boot. You get to know Urian inside and out. His childhood love, current love interest, and family history revealed for readers to see. My favorite is his part in Acheron and Styxx’s life, and how he contributed to their story. I loved the drama, the action, and even the retelling of certain scenes from previous books. I especially loved reliving parts of Styxx’s story. I will admit there’s one particular part that still had me balling.

However. And this is where I felt most conflicted with. Almost the second half of the book was a retelling of scenes from previous books. At first, I was happy to relive scenes that hit me emotionally, but the familiar scenes kept going from one scene to the next. Retellings from previous books don’t usually bother me especially when they are told in different POVs. For the most part, most of the scenes are scenes I’ve enjoyed before. Unfortunately, a big chunk of this book felt like it was exact texts I’ve read before. It felt too much of a deja vu. Despite liking those scenes, I still felt robbed.

Another issue I had and this is a big spoiler, so if you don’t like spoilers, please stop reading now.

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If you read the previous books, you know that there was a build up to Urian finding the love of his life, Phoebe. Unfortunately, after eons of mourning and yearning for her, he ends up with another. I’m not sure if I was resistant to the new romance because I was rooting for Phoebe and Urian from the start but the ending just didn’t sit right with me. All the heartaches Urian went through to get to Phoebe to only end it without a backward glance was just too easy. Way easy.

Despite my complaints, I’m still rating this book two and a half to three stars for the good parts of this book. Will I keep reading Kenyon? Most likely. I still like this world she brings me in and I’ll take any Acheron/Styxx page time anyway I can get.

I'm confused by this book. I felt like I was reading an essay about the different characters. I honestly couldn't find the plot anywhere. There was absolutely No background given for the events that were taking place, and the time changes (denoted by chapter titles with confusing dates) were too much work. The crazy names would have been fine if there were only a few characters, but we're introduced to characters immediately before they die, and then we're introduced to more. I hate this, because it feels like a waste of time. The first chapters were like a history lesson, and a confusing and boring history lesson.
After that the book started to follow a plot, but the structure was strange in that there was no character development. Honestly, I couldn't force myself to finish reading this preview excerpt.
Maybe the overstyled, long-named, historical style will work for some people, but it was not for me.

I really enjoyed the opportunity to read this excerpt. I just got the book and can’t wait to read it.

You can not go wrong with Sherrilyn kenyon. The "dark hunters" are my heros......yes, this is part of a very large series, but trust me when i say every story is differnt, but does have different "main" characters. You can read this as a stand alone, but i reccomend starting at the beginning. Sherrilyn has many amazing characters. Happy Reading!!! :)

Thanks to Netgalley for this Preview ARC. I will definitely be looking for this book in my library. I am intrigued and look forward to the rest of the story.

What a great book!! The character development and storyline were on point! I was intrigued from start to finish. It's a definite read! Loved it!!

It's been a while since I read this book and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. I wanted to love it but I didn't. It was all about Urian and frankly I've never been much of an Urian fan but was hoping Stygian would change that. It didn't.

I often found Urian to be whiny and annoying. He was pretty unlikelable at times and at other times his behaviour didn't make sense. Someone he loves misses their meeting and because she doesn't show he assumes she's dead. And he doesn't bother try to find out what happened to her? It just doesn't make sense.

A major issue is that a large part of the book is recycled. Literally parts are taken word for word from Styxx and Dragonsworn. I've read them both and while I appreciate that some of the events in those books are central to Stygian, I didn't need 200+ pages of recycled material just copied and pasted into Stygian. And the annoying thing is that the ending was rushed. The book was already massive, an extra 50 pages or so wouldn't have made much of a difference or if Kenyon was really so worried about page count she could have just gotten rid of the recycled content.

The biggest issue I had with this book was the lack of romance. I have always thought of Kenyon's book as paranormal romance and even in Acheron and Styxx although the guys were the protagonists there were fairly significant chunks where the reader gets to know the heroine and connects with them. This didn't happen with Stygian. It was all about Urian. We didn't really find out much about her or her struggles. She was not all fully fleshed out. Kenyon really did her a disservice. If this book was going to be the Urian show she shouldn't have had a heroine and Stygian could have been a prequel novel to Urian and his heroine's story where they get equal billing.

The other thing that 's really annoying about the Dark Hunter series is that there's too much mythology. It is so confusing. I'm cool with the Greek and Atlantean mythology and then Kenyon worked in the Eygptian and Sumerian pantheons in which was also cool. Then Kenyon merged her Arthurian world from Lords of Avalon into the dark-hunterverse. This is where it got problematic. It's just too much. Too many characters, too much mythology and there's too many bud guys and they're one-dimensional bad guys at that. To this day one of my favourite characters is Stryker. You don't have to like a bad guy but a good villian is one you can identify with or one you love to hate. These Arthurian villains are just boring. Kenyon seriously needs to up her game. To be perfectly honest Kenyon needs to a) write a guide to her dark-hunterverse b) go back to basics and c) stop adding new characters and end the series (after writing books for Artemis (still actually like her, she can definitely be redeemed),Savitar, Nick and Appolymi - in that order. Appolymi deserves her HEA and frankly hers would be an epic book to end the series on. And as a side note she needs to end the Dark Hunter spin offs - Deadmen walking is nowhere near as interesting as the main series, the chronicles of Nick (CoN) series is so confusing, I have no idea if it's his true past and how it fits in the dark hunter world and even more confusing is where the CoN spin off Shadows of Fire fits in.

In conclusion, Stygian was a disappointment. Kenyon has over complicated the Dark Hunter world. The series is going downhill. Kenyon needs to go back to basics. The Dark Hunter series (in all its incarnations) needs to end. I'm not saying this to be mean. Kenyon is an excellent writer and I adore her novels (especially The League) but she has been writing this series for a couple of decades now and the last few dark hunter world novels have been disappointing. I would prefer her to make few dark hunter books spectacular and then focus on the League series and maybe start a new series.

Hard to put this one down. This was an excerpt that I read, so not sure what else is to come, but felt complete. A lot of characters and different groups to go through, so at times was a little hard to follow. Read many of her books, but it has been awhile, so needed to absorb the writer's world again. Really enjoy her work though, and if you are already a fan I highly recommend this one. If not, while still a good book, I recommend trying her earlier ones first. Otherwise, a good read and a great author.

Being an origin story, I found this a little hard to follow at first, trying to remember what I had read previously about the character. Very quickly, this wasn't an issue. Ms. Kenyon's writing is always detailed, engaging, and at times brutal and this excerpt is no different. You quickly connect with the characters to an almost painful degree given how unkind "life" is to them. Can't wait for the full tale.

I am a huge fan of Sherrilyn Kenyon and I have read all her books that are out so far.

This preview excerpt is well written and I did buy the book after reading this .

Stygian is a great story that is well written.

I do highly recommend.

Great little tease . If you are a fan of Sherrilyn's Dark Hunter series, you do not want to miss Stygian, and everything it has to offer.