I'm a pretty big fan of origin stories, and recently I have started to become more and more of a fan of novellas. This was a pretty awesome novella/origin story. I loved Darian when she was introduced to me in Amanda Bonilla's first book (check out the review if you don't believe me), so I was excited to see how things really started out for her. Granted I knew the big picture, throughout the first book you get a pretty decent glimpse into what Darian went through. But this was different, it wasn't just the simple telling of what happened in her life, but rather the living of it all. All the thoughts and feels that come along with that.

Darian is a hard woman, she has taken what was truly a hard beginning and turned herself into something so much more, and while I would love to go into detail about the person Darian is today, I think it would be robbing you of the experience of the first book. So instead I'll talk about what she was like in this book. Darian starts off as a very broken person. In no way do I think she has ever had a healthy relationship or been loved in the way a woman should be love. But worse than that her husband is a violent guy and beats her when he drinks, and to say it is easy to feel for Darian and to want her to get out of that situation would be an understatement.

Then of course Darian meets Azriel, who changes her entire life. You have Darian being this abused and beaten down woman who is on the brink of dying, turn into something more than human who is really starting to come into her own. She does this all along side Azriel, which I think is actually kind of awesome because you get to see Azriel in such a different light compared to the way you get to know him in the series.

I really enjoyed reading this novella and really getting to know Darian on a level I wasn't really expecting. She's a great character in the series, and that makes her all the more interesting when you get to really experience her back story right along side her. Of course I would recommend this novella to anyone who enjoyed book 1 in the series, but I also think if you are interested in trying out Amanda Bonilla's work then this would be an awesome introduction not only to her writing style but also to the series. All in all I am going to call this novella a don't miss. So go out, buy it, and enjoy! ( )