#styxx

Both Acheron and Styxx were extablished characters in her Dark Hunters romance series that you THOUGHT you knew. Seeing the size of Acheron alone told me that I had no idea what I was getting myself into. It was...intense. Going all the way back to ancient Greece, the life of both men was told from birth onward from Acheron's point of view.

There was nothing soft or warm about the first 3/4 of this book. There are parts I still cannot read again. It was intense and painful to read in parts, my heart breaking for a fictional character. Sherilyn drew the reader in and immersed them in the historical world of ancient Greece and Atlantis. Then coming to the present wasn't much easier. None of the characters were flat, nothing happened for no reason. This was a book that at the end, my heart ached. There was no resolution to the pain really, just open wounds that would have to heal over time and memories of a dark and painful past that haunted an immortal god.

Then a few years later came Styxx. And I seriously thought after reading his brother's book I was ready for it. I can safely say that I think most Dark Hunter's fans were not fans of Styxx, but there was something about Acheron's book that told me there was more that we were going to learn. I was right. If Acheron's was painful Styxx's book was almost eviscerating. So much is learned and even years later it is still hard to describe how well Sherilyn crafted the book. I cannot read it again. Parts, yes, but so much of it was so well done in making the reader experience Styxx's pain and bringing you into his world and experiences....I have never cried so hard reading a book. Sherilyn showed me what "bleed it onto the page" meant. The "show don't tell" became real. I have read a ton of book, I inhale them, but there was something about the brutality described in those books that spoke to something in me. Maybe it was her style, but she did not have to be disgustingly graphic or gory to make me ache for the characters, to be angry for them, and at the end to almost feel numb that the emotions were over. When I write a scene that I want to evoke feelings, I try to go back and think on how Sherilyn crafted her scenes. Not to duplicate her work, but to see how she did it, then learn from her. We have a lot of similar themes in our writing and while I have taken inspiration from her in that way, most of all she taught me how to be a better writer in those two novels.

Besides emotions, she showed he how perspective can change everything. Remember she's telling the story of TWINS in these two books. Not that Acheron's story was completely self serving, but when it came to seeing Styxx's side of things, it became clear there was a lot that Acheron did not know or understand. Things he did not remember because of what was done to him as a young boy, things that were not the fault of either boy. I think that is what made Styxx's book harder to read. In some cases you knew what was coming, but then you saw that it wasn't what you thought at all. So in some cases it was an indictment of the reader a bit, because we all were a bit jaded against Styxx. A great reminder of unreliable narrator and one perspective not being reality at all times. It again helped me to grow as a writer to see it so beautifully laid out in the juxtaposition of the two brothers.