Hi! Welcome back to me ranting on dark romances.
My introduction to the series did not come with this first book. I actually read God of Fury first for a client (hi Cecy!) since it can be read as standalones. You can find my review here. I mention it now because I will refer to it later on.
Synopsis of God of Malice
God of Malice is the first book in the Legacy of Gods series by Rina Kent. This dark romance follows Glyndon King, a shy art student trying to escape her traumatic past, and Killian Carson, a ruthless sociopath who becomes obsessed with her after a chance encounter.
Atrocious « meet-cute »
It deserves its own section because it's so disastrous. Let me set the scene for you.
You decide to go out and enjoy the sun and have a cappuccino on the terrace. Once served, you start reading your new book, only to find a sexual assault on the very first page.
You may ask how we got there. Glyndon is on the edge of a cliff about to commit suicide and is photographed by a stranger who wants her to jump off the rock. When she refuses to jump, he tells her she owes him something. Sexually. It makes very little sense, but hey, I'm getting used to it.
So here I am at the end of chapter 1, wondering how I'm going to root for a relationship that starts like this.
Once again, I know that dark romance is inherently problematic, but I personally find it really hard to see what's attractive about this type of man.
Bland Glyndon
I don't have much to complain about. As the title suggests, she has very little personality, and what she does have is explained aloud as if it were impossible to understand through the text (which is the case throughout the book, which constantly over-explains things).
Glyndon is still mourning the death of her best friend and has an inferiority complex about her mother, who is a renowned artist. That's basically all we know about her, and it doesn't constitute a personality. She acts exactly like her brother Brandon, minus the OCD.
However, I hated the fact that she keeps quiet about being harassed and abused by a guy, even though she clearly states that her family could get rid of Killian very easily.
I also have a problem with her inner monologue, especially when she talks about Killian. It's just unbearable and poorly written. She describes her ABUSER as a predator, a frightening but irresistible demon, and herself as his prey. He is a shadow moving through the night. If she had to assign him a color? It would be black, of course.
Killian the psycho
He's the guy you'll find in every dark romance novel. They've just slapped an official psychopath label on his forehead, but otherwise, he's the cliché of the overprotective caveman, but oh so tall. He repeats the same insanities over and over to Glyndon, so much so that it no longer has any impact and becomes laughable.
All the characters spend their time explaining to us that he's ready to kill at any moment, that he's a ticking time bomb who has been repressing his urges forever, but he never does anything really scary.
Honorable mention: friends & family
I really enjoyed Nikolai and his lordship. They were pretty funny and quite frankly saved every scene they were in.
I still love their families. The chapters devoted to them are undoubtedly the best and cutest!
On the other hand, Glyndon's girlfriends, Annika in particular, annoyed me. She joins their friend group solely to serve as a Wikipedia page and explain how the mafia works every time she opens her mouth. She's barely a character.
The « romance »
As usual with Rina Kent, romance boils down to a series of sexual assaults. I particularly hated the scene where Killian forces Glyndon, and therefore the reader, to admit that she was consenting from the start.
There are, of course, a few cute moments, but most of them happen off-page and are only briefly recounted to us.
No plot
Absolutely nothing happens. What's more, it follows exactly the same structure as God of Fury (well, the reverse, since I read that one first), so it's pretty predictable.
The two plot twists are very predictable and quite ridiculous. Just enough to give Killian a chance to save Glyndon and look like a decent human being for the first time in 500 pages.
When it's not constantly info-dumping, it's very repetitive. They have the same pointless conversations over and over again, and the scenes don't flow particularly well.
The whole thing just felt boring and uninspired.
No lines
Unfortunately, I found this book poorly written, at least compared to God of Fury. The dialogues are sometimes laughable, particularly the scene where Killian's ex explains to Glyndon why she will never be right for him because she's neurotypical.
Their inner monologues are often unbearable. They talk about each other as if they were able to read each other's minds. We are constantly told how they will react through the dialogue, especially regarding Killian, as mentioned earlier.
There are still some good lines towards the end of the book.
Final thoughts and rating
My rating: 1.55/5 stars
Overall, I found it repetitive, problematic and boring with a lot of overexplaining. Basically exactly what I said about God of Fury...
Have you read the book? If you want to know what I thought about it, my fully annotated book is available.
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