A VVivacious Review: Darkside (Mate of the Tyger Prince #2) by Shannon West

Rating: 4.5 Stars out of 5
 
Dark Side“The course of true love never did run smooth.”  – William Shakespeare
General Haggoz finds himself in the impossible situation of having to imprison his own nobyo. As he struggles to come to terms with the wrong doings of Kevin, he also realizes that he will never stop loving Kevin. Kevin finds himself imprisoned in a cell in Haggoz’s house where the only thing that breaks the pall of his existence is Haggoz and the few times he deems to visits him. But while Kevin may have reasons for his deeds, he has given up hope on ever having Haggoz forgive him.
 
On the other hand, Mikos and Ryan are trying to get through everyday life. They bicker like an old married couple but are just as much in love as they were before.
 
But when Mikos and Haggoz disappear it is up to Kevin and Ryan to find them and bring them home.
 
This book is a good companion to its predecessor.
 
The story of this book follows two couples – Mikos and Ryan; and Haggoz and Kevin. The best part about following two couples was that since both these couples where in different places in their respective relationships, it made for an interesting story as we kind of got all the phases that a relationship goes through in one go.
 
Mikos and Ryan love each other more than ever but they also argue more than ever. Their story is basically about how navigating married life has been for them so far.
 
This time around we get more of the royal family. We get lots of interactions with Blake, who I have come to adore. His will is second to none. Also we get to see a whole lot more of Vannos, Anarr, Larz and Nicarr but I guess the best thing was that we got to see Blake interact with his children which is so sweet. I mean I loved the parental vibes he gives off and how well he knows all his kids and how much he loves them. Also we see more of Davos. I can probably read an entire book about Blake and Davos. But there was also a very inconspicuous absence of Blake and Davos’ fourth child Darrek, I mean this time around when we got introduced to all his other siblings, I would have thought we would get to see him too, but no there is nothing about him in this book, absolutely no mention whatsoever. Also more Mikol!
 
This time around we get a bit more on the shifting aspects of Tygerians. Well we actually get to see Haggoz in his tiger form and personally I loved the scene. But I wish we could get more of tiger Mikos, now that I would love to see.
 
Kevin and Haggoz’s story line was something extremely beautiful. I mean here are two people who love each other a lot but find themselves on opposite sides of the law. Haggoz had a horrible childhood and Kevin is his one and only shot at happiness because Kevin is his happiness. But Haggoz also has a duty to his king to keep his nobyo, Kevin as a prisoner but try as he might to hate Kevin for his actions he realises that his love for Kevin is boundless. In fact during the entire story I was positive that any hurt Haggoz had ever inflicted on Kevin actually hurt him more and hurting Kevin was actually his way of hurting himself.
 
Kevin might have reasons for his wrong doings but he doesn’t think that Haggoz will understand. But loving Haggoz is something that has become synonymous with living life for Kevin.
 
These two tortured souls who want nothing but to be together must walk a difficult and treacherous path to be together. But since their hearts are already one it won’t take long for their minds to realize how foolish their forced separation is.
 
I loved the story and how it is written the POVs alternating between the two couples, on one side there was the playfulness of Ryan and Mikos and on the other was the heartache of Kevin and Haggoz and they balanced each other perfectly. The plot was the best because seeing the Ryan and Kevin work together to get back their mates was really well done. Also it was nice to see the humans work together to rescue their more powerful Tygerian mates.
 
My only irritation with the book was that the meeting scene between Haggoz and Kevin was repeated i.e. we got that same scene from Haggoz’s as well as Kevin’s perspective but reading it again was kind of a dredge. Also the party at the end of which Mikos gets shot in the previous book was rehashed this time from Ryan’s POV, these repetitions got kind of boring. Actually as such it wasn’t the repetition of the scene that was so boring it was the fact that I was anticipating that I would have to read the events that I already knew about again that was trying.
 
Otherwise this book was a great follow up to its predecessor and I loved the epilogue, finally Mikos learns how to deal with his husband. I hope we can get more Mikos and Ryan.
 
Cover Art by E Connors. The cover is a little weird what with that huge scarf but it is actually a depiction of Kevin from a scene in the book but it makes no sense whatsoever if you haven’t read the book.
Sales Links:  Amazon  | ARe
Book Details:
ebook
Published April 5th 2016 by Dark Hollows Press LLC
Edition LanguageEnglish
Series Mate of the Tyger Prince

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