Child Of Darkness

By Jennifer Armintrout

At a Lightworld royal gala, Queene Ayla announces the betrothal of her daughter, Cerridwen, to a high–ranking councillor. Though strategically brilliant, the engagement comes as a shock; to Cerridwen especially. Infuriated by her mother's high–handedness, ignorant of her own true origins, she flees the court; leaving herself vulnerable to those who would see the Lightworld destroyed.

Amid burgeoning unrest, desperate desires become divided loyalties and terrifying mercenaries lurk in the shadowy space between rebellion and anarchy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Jul 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781460826539

Jennifer Armintrout

Jennifer Armintrout is the bestselling author of the Blood Ties series. She resides in West Michigan with her husband and children.

Reviews for Child Of Darkness

[lvstrongpuff · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really liked this book. You could feel the love between Ayla and her darkling. The ending had me tearing up. Great book. I can't wait to read the next one.

[jenni7202 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This review was originally posted on my review blog : Falling Off The Shelf.Cerridwen has always been treated like a child, rather than the Princess of the Lightworld. Her mother, Queene Ayla forbids contact with those of the Darkworld, but keeps a Darkworlder as her personal Royal Consort. Cerridwen can't understand how her mother could be such a hypocrite, and this is just one reason why she rebels repeatedly.Queene Ayla refuses to inform her daughter of her true origins, but only for her own safety. When she chooses to betroth her daughter to her highest-ranking counselor, Cerridwen sees this as the last draw. She packs up a few necessities and flees the Lightworld, and runs straight into the arms of the Darkworld, the most dangerous place in all of the Underground.When first reading this book I couldn't decide whether I truly enjoyed it as much as Queene of Light, the first in the series. The main character, Ayla, was molded to fit her royal status, and lost a lot of the things I liked about her, or so it seemed. Her daughter, Cerridwen, only seemed to be a selfish brat, or in this case, a perfect example of a royal princess. The only character that I seemed to continue to enjoy was the Royal Consort, Malachi.Instead of throwing this book to the side I pushed on, and was greatly surprised to find out that I just needed to wade through the beginning muck to find the beautiful story at the end. Despite my conflicting emotions toward this book, I found I ended up really enjoying it, especially the way the world is described so vividly. I actually felt like if I turned around I would end up in the beautiful city of the Lightworld, or in some cases, being chased through the tunnels of the Darkworld by a blood thirsty demon.While others have reviewed this book and said that they clearly don't believe it should be marked as a romance, I beg to differ. There isn't a huge amount of romance involved, but there is an underlying tone of it, and if not for that little bit, this story would be bland and have little meaning. The love between these characters is what pushed them to do the things that they did, if it only caused a war in the process. I'm looking forward to reading the last installment of this trilogy, Veil of Shadows, to see what other kind of adventures these creatures of the Underground have to tell.

[ruthiesbookreviews · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book was pretty good, but certainly not as good as the first one in this series. Here we follow, Alya, who was pregnant with the Dark Angel's baby at the end of the first book and now she is Queene of the Lightworld, 20 years later. So as you can imagine Alya's daughter is now 20 years old and very rebellious. Much like her mother used to be. Cerridwen is her name and she finds it fascinating to sneak away from the Palace every opportunity that she gets. But she's not ready for the battle that is about to come. So much is going on with each of the characters.Queene Alya is trying to function as the Queene, even though she knows that a lot of the Fae really don't think that she's qualified to be the Queene. Her royal consort, no longer Death Angel, Malachi, woh is now human struggles with watching his own daughter growing up and not being able to actually be her father. Cedric, who is at the side of the Queene and helps her, feels unappreciated and finds a love with a Gypsy and instead of turning and running with her, he stays behind to help the Queene with the upcoming war to come.Cerridwen hears of the plans to attack a Darkworld group of Elves and runs off to her Elven friend to warn him. But it doesn't turn out to be that way. She ends up trapped. Will the Fae be able to save the Royal Heir and fend off the disaster thats eating it's way towards the Lightworld? Will all survive? Well, the answer to that lies in the chance you take when you read the book. I'm not telling....lolOnce again, Jennifer Armintrout has written an outstanding world of all of the mythical figures that we have all come ot know and love. This one included waterhorses, elves and of course, humans! It was a good read and I look forward to reading Veil of Darkness!

[pacey1927 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

NOT A PARANORMAL ROMANCE!My Title may sound like its a negative thing that this book isn't really a paranormal romance, but its not. I just feel like this book would have been more honestly labeled as a fantasy book. I read the first book, "Queene Of Light" and enjoyed it however I had a difficult time connecting to the characters, and caring about them because they were so tremendously different, being fairies and angels, and their views of loves and emotions were way different than mine. I appreciated the story for the unique and detailed world Armintrout produced and the storyline was interesting if somewhat hard to get into. This second story "Child of Darkness" is a great improvement. I found the main character Cerridwen to be annoyingly childish for much of the book, but I also felt she was relatable and I think she may be the best character in this series to date. She is the daughter of Ayla, the queen of the Lighword, and a half human/half fairy mix and Ayla's royal consort, the fallen angel Malachi. In this story, a battle looms that will forever change the underworld. Elves have started a war against the Queene's palace and they have an evil force of Waterhorses at their beck and call. The waterhorses are leaving deadly trails of bodies in their wake already. Cerridwen fancies herself in love with an elf but he doesn't know her true nature and she is about to gamble the lives of her family and those of their followers. Their is a sorta romance between Cerridwen and her elf and an established romance between Anya and Malachi. Their love shows more in this book than it did in the first actually, and I had tears in my eyes by the end of the novel. Read the book though and you will probably agree with me about this not being a romance novel. Still the story worked on a more emotion level, and still the plot was very interesting and heart racing. I didn't agree with many of Ayla's political moves but its obvious she did care for her people. The battles were intense and thigns didn't always come out like you'd expect. The book ends on a cliff-hanger of sorts and the whole premise of the story seems to have changed. I was interested in reading this series before, but now I am quite involved and eagerly await the next book.