4.5 stars - Nightborn: Lords of the Darkyn ended up as probably my favorite of the Darkyn so far. There is a darkness to Viehl's series that often leaves me with mixed reactions to her books despite the fact that the writing and the characters are so good. There still plenty of death in Nightborn but not as much in the moment torture, just fades to black where we know what's going to happen or the aftermath mentioned here and there. The leading man is Korvel, who was bad-guy-ish in one of the earlier books - under orders from the Darkyn king Richard, Korvl had kept Alex enthralled but ended up falling for her. Korvel's intro here is pretty sympathy stirring and I found it easy to forgive him for past misdeeds once I knew more of his backstory and how important his vows and his honor were to him - and how Richard abused those vows. I really like his heroine, Simone - a lot - she is deadly sweet and awesome and her backstory is just as intriguing as Korvel's and results in some pretty great action scenes.

Even though Lords of the Darkyn is a Darkyn spinoff, Nightborn is really a continuation of the early series, at least character-wise, with some familiar faces: Nicola and Gabe in a supporting role and others from the series - including Alex - turning up here and there. However, it did look like there might not so much of the Brethren this time - which I am totally fine with - and I am intrigued by the Tresora council and the Sentinels - there definitely looks to be more to the devoted servants than their masters realize. Oh, and I had forgotten that the Darkyn started out as Knight's Templar - I have a thing for the Templars.

So I really loved this first Lords of the Darkyn and am looking forward to the next book Nightbreed which supposedly has Thierry's, Jamys, in the lead.