Exina's Reviews > The Darkest Lie

"Cold metal and hot skin, a delicious combination."

The Darkest Lie is the sixth book of the Lords of the Underworld series, the story of Gideon, Keeper of Lies, and Scarlet, Keeper of Nightmares.

Scarlet had spent hundreds of years in Tartarus, waiting for her husband to come back for her. He never did. When she finally got free, she came to Budapest to get revenge on her faithless husband.

At the end of the previous book, The Darkest Passion, the Lords captured Scarlet, and placed her in the dungeon in their fortress in Budapest. She claims that she is the wife of Gideon, but Gideon doesn’t remember he had married her, nor that he had ever met her. Scarlet is furious.

Gideon popped his jaw, teeth bared for a second. "Are we not married?"
"Sure we are," she said. "But in my mind I'm cheating on you with Ryan."
Now the pink tip of his tongue peeked out from his lip, as if he meant to chew it off. "You're so freaking funny."
"Who said I was joking?"

Though Gideon doesn’t remember, he saw a woman with black eyes, red lips, and a tattoo on her lower back in his dreams many times. He suspects that someone deleted his memories about Scarlet, but he can’t imagine any reason for that.

He decides to try to romance her, in order to get answers to the questions that Scarlet refused to answer.

"You sprang me for answers, so why are you trying so hard to soften me romantically? You'd have better luck working me over with your fists."
Good. She'd sounded angry rather than breathless.
"Didn't think about that already."
He'd thought about hitting her? That--that--
"And I could absolutely bring myself to do it." Sweetheart.
Gods, she really was an idiot, melting like butter because he'd decided not to beat her up. Next she'd be hearing angels sing because he decided not to fork her jugular.

Finally, they decide to go and find answers together. They don’t know where the journey will end, nor where it started.

What eventually turns out, OMG, is shocking. It is the most brilliant twist in the LOTU books so far. And the other one about their demons! Hilarious!

Gideon is absolutely perfect. He wants to have a woman who understands him. He is “wonderfully stubborn”, wild, funny, extravagant, both in his looks and his desires.

Wanted to do more. Do everything. Things he'd only ever dreamed of doing to others but hadn't been able to do because of his demon. Wicked things, things most women would probably shy away from. Hell, things most men would probably shy away from. But he was a warrior who had seen and done things most people couldn't comprehend. He'd lived for a long, long time and normal had grown yawn-inducing.

What really annoyed me after a couple of pages was the continuous and totally unnecessary translation of Gideon-speak by the author. In places even ‘yes’ and ‘no’ were interpreted.

Slowly he spun back around. "Yes," he said through clenched teeth, the word barely scraping its way free. Meaning no, he had none.

Scarlet is a very interesting character, her past is horrible. Her demon is very cool, able to invade dreams, and find out what frightens people the most. What it does to its victim in the dream, the same things happens to them in reality. Therefore Nightmares can even kill by dreams. But the demon can also show memories, and create beautiful, magical surroundings.



Scarlet easily accommodates to Gideon’s way of speaking, and smartly uses it sometimes to tease him, resulting in lots of funny moments.

Gideon and Scarlet’s relationship is very special and intense. I enjoyed following the development in the change of their emotions, as they get to know each other slowly, and as the secrets around them are revealed. The timing of revealing these mysteries is flawless, and they nicely support the emotional side of their relationship.

The secondary storylines were thrilling, though Sienna disappeared halfway through the book, Strider was really annoying, and I died a little for Amun.

I loved Cronus. My favorite is his popcorn-episode.

The story is a masterfully complicated maze of lies, secret and mysteries. One of the best of the LOTU series.

My favorite quotes.