Dark Rising
Brian Andrews & Jeffrey Wilson
The Shepherds Series I Book 4
04/08/2025
Blackstone Publishing

Ben, Jed, David, Rachel, Corbin, Sarah Beth, Paster Dee and others are back! Book 3, Dark Fall, leaves a little breathing room for the Shepherds with Victor being defeated. However, there is no rest for the wicked. During the Dark Rising, the Dark Ones are to select the new General on Earth to do the devil’s will. Jed finds a new ally in CIA liaison Gayle James. This group of men, women and children from all over the world and different backgrounds are brought together for this epic battle.

The Shepherds Series is about spiritual warfare; about good versus evil. The hierarchy of The Shepherds loosely mirrors the military structure. You know who is calling the shots when the rubber meets the road. There is a lot of prayer, guidance, sacrifice and scripture on these pages. It should make you think. Everything that happens in this series happens behind the scenes. Temptation is happening around us all day, every day even to the Shepherds.

This battle is unlike anything they have encountered. The Dark Force continually gets stronger. The divide on the dark side is that women cannot be in charge. The Shepherds are facing a new battle, and they must come together and face the unexpected. Manboo, an evil woman, brings a lot of magic, power and voodoo to the table causing a rift. She moves the men who are in power within the Dark Ones organization with ease – like players on a chess board. Wonderfully complicated layers of characters, growing story lines, themes of sacrifice and temptation fill each page perfectly. Evil never stops. It will always try to beat the light. Join the Shepherds on this continuing journey to fight until the end.

I probably should preface this by saying that I am a huge fan of this writing duo. They have several active series out right now and I honestly do not care when I see a new book. I don't even need to know which series it is for because I am already pretty sure that I'm going to love the book. They haven't let me down yet.

This series, though, it IS a little different. I've said to my husband many times that books in the horror genre really do not scare me. The only thing that makes the hair on my arm stand up is when there are books on spiritual warfare - because there really IS a "good" side and a "bad/evil" one. Scary stuff.

So, this series is probably not for everyone (though it should be). Why? Well, because this series is actually about the war between good and evil, between God and Satan and it uses scripture sometimes to make points. It uses the same systems as in their Tier One series - but this time the good guys are called the Shepards, and the bad guys are the Dark Ones.

This is not the first book in the series. I think it is the third book and we are building on the world that has been previously built. Can it be read as a stand alone? Probably. But, the first two books are exceptional so why would you intentionally miss out?

This book starts a new story/plot line in the series, and it also has some real character growth occurring for some of the main characters - specifically Jed, Sarah Beth, Corbin, David and Ben.

Another great book. Truly. Can't wait for the next one in the series, because we have some bad people still out there.......

Thank you to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for the opportunity to read and review this ARC. The opinions above are mine and mine alone. This book will be out for publication on Apr 08, 2025.

This was a strong fourth book in the Shepherd’s series, it had that element that I was looking for from the previous three books. It uses the overall feel of this and had that feel that I wanted. The characters had that element that worked with the previous book and enjoyed how they were used in this universe. Brian Andrews & Jeffrey Wilson wrote a strong story and has been great each book, I hope there is more in this series and can’t wait for more.