RELEASE REVIEW: Darkest Before Dawn by Maya Banks

THE ALL-NEW KGI NOVEL from the “incredibly awesome” (Jaci Burton) #1 New York Times bestselling author of When Day Breaks.

The Kelly Group International (KGI): A super-elite, top secret, family-run business.
Qualifications: High intelligence, rock-hard body, military background.
Mission: Hostage/kidnap victim recovery. Intelligence gathering. Handling jobs the U.S. government can’t…

The enigmatic Hancock has been both opponent and ally to the KGI teams for as long as they’ve known him. Always working a deep game, Hancock’s true allegiance has never been apparent, but one thing is for certain—he never lets anything get in the way of duty.

But now, his absolute belief in the primacy of his ultimate goal is challenged by a captive he’s been ordered to guard, no matter how much she suffers in her prison. She’s the only woman who’s ever managed to penetrate the rigid walls surrounding his icy heart, but will he allow his perplexing feelings for the beautiful victim to destroy a mission he’s spent years working to complete or will he be forced to sacrifice her for “the greater good.”

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Review

“The good of the many takes priority over the good one.”

This is the code Hancock lives by; a belief system that has no room for feelings or emotions…no place for mercy or conscience. It’s a way of life that makes Hancock a heartless bastard, manipulating and sacrificing people and not worrying about who gets hurt in the process as long as justice is brought and the majority is saved.

But Honor Cambridge, a woman who has more courage and resourcefulness than many men, complicates Hancock’s fight to rid the world of dangerous criminals because as much as he tries to remain void of any feelings when it comes to Honor, she slowly seeps into his pores and threatens to unravel not only his mission but his whole way of life.

I’ve read many of Maya Banks’ stories, but this is my first one in her KGI series. Thankfully, though, I didn’t feel lost in the dangerous and undercover world Banks created because she lays out the plot line at the beginning and provides enough of Hancock’s back story to allow me to understand what he believes in and why he does what he does for a living. I’ll admit…Honor and Hancock’s story started out a bit slow for me, but once the hunt begins, the pace of the story shifts, and readers begin to understand the mission that Hancock and his team are on and just how much Honor alters every aspect of it.

Maya Banks does a fantastic job of illustrating the emotional and physical torment that Honor goes through at the hands of a man she thinks is helping her and those men who wish her bodily harm. As Honor slinks further into herself and the darkness that’s consuming her with every lie…every volatile act threatens to immerse her fully, I couldn’t stop crying. It was almost as if I could feel Honor’s devastation and the numbing consequences of those acts against her by the men who want her dead and the man who seems conflicted at what he exactly wants from her. I couldn’t read fast enough during this part of the story because I needed Hancock to redeem himself, and I needed Honor to be okay…to do more than survive, but I didn’t truly see any way for that to happen with everything that went down with Hancock as well as Bristow and Maksimov.

A sacrificial lamb or a redeeming angel…a cold blooded mercenary or a man with a conscience.  Throughout most of the story, I couldn’t quite decide what Hancock would decide to do with Honor, especially when time after time, Honor proves that she’s so much more than a pawn in a deadly game. But like the title implies, there’s going to be a hell of a lot of darkness and evil before redemption can find its way out into the light.

A complimentary copy was provided by the author/publisher in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 Poison Apples