Insurrection

Dark Desires Origin, Book 3

By: Nina Croft

Narrated by: S. W. Salzman

Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

Don’t miss the thrilling conclusion of what led to the beginning....

Insurrection, the third installment of Nina Croft’s Dark Desires Origins series, answers the final question of how it all began. When a demon from Earth falls for a woman on the other side of the galaxy, they must make the impossible choice between doing what’s right and doing what’s necessary. Light meets dark, good meets evil...and love hurts like Hell.

©2022 Nina Croft (P)2022 Spotify Audiobooks

Good Series

I read that this was the final book of a trilogy but I see that there’s a couple other stories that could be told. For example does Callum take over leadership and what about Dylan, the Alpha. What’s his story? And, there’s a question about the strange purple things. What’s that all about. But overall, this has been a very good series with plenty of action, romance, and of course, the good guys versus the bad guys. I’m not a big fan of the erotic scenes but I could successfully fast forward through those. Religion does not receive a very good rep in this series with the church wanting to suppress differences and at the same time be the governmental body in control. Not being religious, it doesn’t bother me, but others may be somewhat offended.

Like an episode from 70s era Star Trek

This book follows the familiar playbook of the series, where the supernatural element is quite repressed in 90% of the story. Here, demon Mal has been bound into his human form unless and until he performs three selfless tasks. Per usual, the human love interest has inta-lust, although in this book that lust is tempered by Mal’s arrogance and we get a tad more relationship foreplay with the enemies to lovers dynamic. That also leads to slightly less nooky, even if the nooky follows the usual smattering of phrases favored by the author (shaft like satin over steel, feeling it in her core, etc). There are only 2-3 scenes in this book and they are still oddly adult for this often YA feeling story.

On the mystery and sci-fi side, the plot goes full-on 70s Star Trek campy, with religious cults and fanatical inquisitions… in the year 2550. And, only in a James Kirk kind of universe could an entire away team get infected and then be allowed back onto the ship without anyone insisting on quarantine protocols.

On balance, I found this to be a slight improvement from book 2; at least this one adds some depth and complexity to the characters.. While book 2 really annoyed me, it is helpful to listen to it because book 2 features warlock Milo, son of this book’s MC, the full-on demon Mal. Book 2 also fleshes out vampire Rico and book 1 introduced ark-ship leader Callum, who becomes more than a one-note player here. However, there are enough recaps and explanations that you could listen to this as a stand alone. Either way, I’d recommend waiting for a sale, because all three books are on the clunky and shallow side.

Finally: how are we three book in and still vampire Rico doesn’t do any vampiric things. Bite a neck, hypnotize, turn into a bat or something.