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Book Reviews of Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1)

Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1)
Born of Night - aka Born of the Night - League, Bk 1
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon
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ISBN-13: 9780312942304
ISBN-10: 0312942303
Publication Date: 9/29/2009
Pages: 560
Rating:
  • Currently 4/5 Stars.
 401

4 stars, based on 401 ratings
Publisher: St. Martins Press
Book Type: Paperback
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

29 Book Reviews submitted by our Members...sorted by voted most helpful

jck avatar reviewed Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1) on + 13 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 8
Like most science fiction romance stories, this kept me entertained, but it didn't dazzle me. Kiara is a dancer and a princess (of a planet) and Nykyrian is one of the most feared assassins in the universe. Of course Nykyrian is fascinated by Kiara and her dancing, even though he has never really had an interest in women...
The most frusterating part about this book was Kiara. When she was a child, she was shot 3 times and watched her mother get murdered. Because of this, she says she doesn't cry and wants to fight the people who hurt the innocent: she seems like some kick ass chick who will be able to hold her own. Not the case. She cries all the time and finds it hard to believe that there are people out there that can kill others without hesitation.
So 2.5, didn't suck, wasn't great, just held my attention for 5 hours.
reviewed Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1) on
Helpful Score: 6
Nykyrian is an expert assassin; Kiara a famous dancer. They are thrown together by their enemies and some how end up falling in love.

I have to say first off that this is not my genre. I love a good romance but, futuristic romance is just not my thing. That being said, I actually read this book until the end, which for me is a huge fete since I usually will stop reading after the first few chapters once I realize I am not into it. As a book reviewer though, I am learning to give everything a fair chance. This story wasn't too bad, the characters are wonderful and there is a good balance between the romance and the sci fi. There were some parts I had to force myself through but others I could not stop reading. I read this whole book in one sitting, it took me roughly 6 hours. Not bad.

Overall this book isn't for me but if you enjoy this genre, I firmly believe you will love this book whole-heartedly. I do have to admit, since the next book features Syn as the main character I might have to read it, because he was a good comic relief in this book. We shall see.

Also posted: http://www.bibliophilicbookblog.com/2009/10/book-review-born-of-night-by-sherilyn.html
tioga avatar reviewed Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1) on + 167 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 4
I had a hard time staying with this book. I kept putting it down and reading other books before picking it up again. I was over halfway through the book before I stayed with it until the end. Not one of Kenyon's best.
FriscoOBX avatar reviewed Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1) on + 601 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
another great one by kenyon. worth the read
hclarson avatar reviewed Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1) on + 3 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
This was a great read. Interesting characters in an interesting world. Being a big fan of the Dark Hunters, I can see an early incarnation of Ash in Nyk. Long hair, fangs, shades, really bad attitude, love of children. I am looking forward to books two and three, and I hope that the series continues with more books.
reviewed Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1) on + 8 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Good book - very different story from the dark hunter series
vamplver avatar reviewed Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1) on + 14 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
i thought this was a wonderful book. i cant wait for the next in the series.very interesting and a little romance thrown in to keep it interesting.
frazerc avatar reviewed Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1) on + 672 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Excellent read - a science fiction romance with an action [lots and lots of action!] based plot and filled with engaging characters.

First let's get the caveats out of the way. This is NOT hard science fiction and the science is occasionally dubious. The political background [and the League] are not well defined. The assassins may be over the top, but the soldiers [such as those guarding the heroine at various times] are pretty lame for presumably elite troops. You'd expect more Special Forces and less F Troop for the guards on the ranking people of the entire planet... Should these reasons stop you from reading the book? NO!

So, why should you read this book? Nykarian is the hero and the poster boy for tortured heroes who manage to come out the other side as lethal and deadly, but with a sense of honor. Kyria is the heroine. She spends most of the book being either kidnapped or attacked. She is a princess who has a very naive world view, especially given that she experienced violence at its worst. When she was 8 and she and her mother were kidnapped and she was forced to watch as her mother was raped, tortured, and murdered - just before the bad guys put three shots into her with intent to kill her. [I couldn't help but think that an 8 year old is not very big - couldn't they manage to hit something fatal on her? More of the F Troop syndrome.] Yet when Nykarian kills 20 men intent on killing HER, she freaks out on him for his violence. She gets over it [and succeeding moments where the big, bad world keeps crashing in] and she and Nykarian find in each other things they have never had before. Acceptance. Loyalty. Love.

The supporting characters are as fascinating as the hero and heroine. They live and breathe and suffer [and produce some nice snarky dialogue] along with the hero and heroine. It's a vintage Kenyon plot - bad ass hero, beautiful heroine, evil villains galore - and that's a good thing.

League
The League 01-Born Of The Night
The League 02-Born Of Fire
The League 03-Born Of Ice
The League 03.5-Fire And Ice
The League 04-Born of Shadows
The League 05-Born of Silence
The League 06-Cloak & Silence
The League 07- Born Of Fury
paperbackreader79 avatar reviewed Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1) on
Helpful Score: 1
The plot was great action ensued from the very begining. I found that I eve teared up at one point very good fast read.
reviewed Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1) on + 52 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
I loved this book!! In fact, I daresay I liked this book as much if not more than Ms. Kenyon's Dark Hunter books, and that's not something I say lightly. I think I like these characters because all of them are flawed in ways that I find easy to identify with--or at least understand--and while I find all of Ms. Kenyon's characters very life like there's just something that puts the League characters...well, in a league of their own (pun totally intended!).

This is Nykyrian and Kiara's story and it had me hooked from Page 1. As usual, the characters are very well developed and we get their backstories so we can fully understand why they are the way they are. I absolutely loved Nykyrian, but I have to admit that I was far more drawn to Syn and can't wait to read his story!

I highly recommend this book!! It's a keeper and I can't wait to see how the League Series unfolds.

Happy Reading!
reviewed Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1) on + 40 more book reviews
i've read all of the dark hunter series and loved them so i tried the league series. i love them just as much. kenyon is the best.
reviewed Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1) on
Really liked this one
reviewed Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1) on + 55 more book reviews
There is a line that differentiates a damaged character from a man that has been completely stripped of every human right and emotion. I mean, good god, I'm surprised Nyk survived long enough to even become adopted because I would have ended it long before then. Every time you learn something new about Nyk you realize that the author has created yet another horrifying memory that is usually so often I couldn't even have imagined it in the first place.

I think almost every plot device is used in this book throughout all of the characters - rape, parental death, lack of nurturing, betrayal, pain, loss, miscommunication between lovers, an out of the blue unexpected pregnancy, a child he never knew about, reconnection with his birth parents....just, damn!

About 3/4 of the way through the book though I started to get severely annoyed at the number of times Kiara and Nyk could and could not be together. One minute good. The next its over. You keep thinking they are finally figuring this out, it can finally all come together so that they can get themselves out of the trouble they are surrounded by, but no - first there has to be yet one more unthoughtful word or phrase to set the other off and cause untold amounts of hurt.

I am all about the tortured hero, its a great story line that usually leads to a lot of emotion and twisted plots, but this has hit the ridiculous point. At some point the author should step back and say 'is this really necessary'? but Kenyon never does that. she just showers her poor characters in yet more pain, hurt, and loss. Its like a typhoon that none can avoid.

Yet in the end she miraculously pulls it together with one huge happily ever after. So convenient. Not even a secondary character death. Normally this would make me so happy but it was just so completely unrealistic that it annoyed me. And Syn's showing up at the 11th hour with no explanation (yes its in the next book but that's not the point) totally annoyed me. He was a huge secondary character, completely disappeared, and then just shows back up like he was out on vacation.

All in all I could not put this book down. I devoured the missions, the danger, the torturously slow revelations about Nyk (past and present), and the growing love in Kiara. What really held this book back though was the under polished sci-fi aspects of the book. So much more could have been elaborated on that would have made the rest of the book so much better. For instance, have the climax be a space fight was a good shift away from the rest of the book with its hand to hand combat, but because the sci-fi elements of the book were so lackluster it caused the climax to all short. I waffled back and forth between 3 or 4 stars, but went the higher route in the end as this book definitely kept me engrossed and up till the early hours of the night to read it.

All that said I will definitely read the next book to figure out just what the hell happened to Syn for those few weeks that he completely was off the radar.
gkmother avatar reviewed Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1) on + 12 more book reviews
Sherrilyn is my favorite author...nuff said.
reviewed Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1) on + 7 more book reviews
I saw that a lot of the reviews for this book were not positive so I wanted to post that I really liked the book. (I also like Kenyon's Dark Hunters books too) I really enjoyed the twists and turns and the characters in this book and series. I am not a big sci-fi fan but enjoyed the story so much that it didn't deter me.
scollins avatar reviewed Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1) on + 59 more book reviews
Great story - The book was 533 pages and I sailed through it. Held my attention, I laughed, cried, cringed and related to the characters.

This is the story of Nykyrian who is a lost soul, assassin who has shut down his emotions in order to survive a life filled with pain, rejection, distrust, discrimination, hate, and regret. He has resigned to the fact that he will be alone the rest of his life and is ok with that. The problem is a certain dancer who has grabbed his attention with her dancing...
reviewed Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1) on
Born of Night was heartbreaking in the treatment of the main character. Sherrilyn was very descripitive in his treatment that at times I was teary. She also painted a beautiful picture of his love interest and how thier love grew for one another. Sherrilyn put everything you can want in her book action, romance, mystery. I really enjoyed this book.
reviewed Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1) on
Loved this book as I have all of her books. I would recomend this to any of her readers.
reviewed Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1) on + 25 more book reviews
Kenyon is a very popular writer. However, I REALLY didn't like this book - her style, story telling and character development just didn't cut it for me. By page three we have the achingly beautiful, scarred, 1/2 alien, bad-guy-with-good-heart, misunderstood hero rescuing the tiny, most beautiful, always in trouble princess. She comes across as stupid and whiny. She continually gets into trouble and he rescues her and the sex builds and becomes overly idiotic. I quite reading about half way through the book. Compared to Kim Harrison and Patrica Briggs, Kenon is on the bottom.
sumrwind avatar reviewed Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1) on + 135 more book reviews
I enjoy this series, very much, future, relationships, family love......it has it all. highly recommend them
aleena1092 avatar reviewed Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1) on + 22 more book reviews
I normally love Kenyon's books, but this one could hardly keep my attention. It wasn't a page turner by any means. Felt the same way about second book as well, so much so that I didn't even read the 3rd...I just posted it on the website and cut my losses.
reviewed Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1) on + 36 more book reviews
I have really mixed feelings about this book. The story was ok, but I was a little lost, I felt like this was a second book in the serie and I did not read the first one, I guess the author just drops you in this world and you learn about it as you go along. I also hated Kiara, she was so whinny, all talk about beeing strong and no action to support her claim!
reviewed Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1) on + 25 more book reviews
I am a big fan of Ms Kenyon's "Dark Hunter" series, but just couldn't get into this one. I picked this up while scanning the aisles at my local used book haunt for her name. However, this one is not fallen heroes, Gods, and romance (like the Dark Hunter series). It is science fiction. Ms Kenyon is a great writer and if you like science fiction-romance you will like this book. I enjoyed it, but I didn't love it. Just not my style.
zmama avatar reviewed Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1) on + 36 more book reviews
i almost put this down, it was slow in the beginning. glad i didn't because i loved the 2nd and 3rd.
reviewed Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1) on + 18 more book reviews
I'm a huge fan of Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark/Dream/Were Hunter books. I've read on of the books set in this 'world' in an anthology... I loved it so thought I'd try her League Books.

I loved it just as just as the DH series. Never liked the Bad series, but this one works for me. Love the characters ... they're strong. It kept my interest and I hated to put it down... I'm on Book 2 now and same... I love it. Although Born of Night and Born of Fire are part of the same series, they run concurrant to each other. If you get one before the other, you can almost read them backwards.

Enjoy!
Nora avatar reviewed Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1) on + 130 more book reviews
All I can tell you is that if you are a Kenyon fan........this is a must read.
Bkcrazee avatar reviewed Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1) on + 388 more book reviews
What a great story. Well worth the wait.
momdoc5 avatar reviewed Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1) on + 8 more book reviews
This was the first League book I read after keeping up with all of the Dark Hunter books. It was quite different from the DH books but I did enjoy it a lot.
bratz54 avatar reviewed Born of Night (aka Born of the Night) (League, Bk 1) on + 1024 more book reviews
By far the best, it dies have does strong emotions coming Kiara, have been kidnapped a few times when she was young to being killed numerous occasions through out her life and now being kidnapped by some of the universe's nasty creatures almost raped by them was putting her is a bad situation. When all hope of rescue was lost, when in the middle of a 'shoot out' her rescuers came out of now where.
Thats when Nykyrian/ Nemesis ( his alto ego) come and rescuers the little dancer that he has wanted for a few years. When she is in danger he comes and takers her right out of the fire. No one has been able to be around Kykyrian other then Syn(close to a brother) in all his life. Now this little dancer has him felling things he as never felt before and when he thinks shes out of his mind, she is there breaking down his walls and in the process he cares for her and only her. Hes been hit, raped, beaten, starved, tied down, and other numerous things degrading to Nykyrian when he was growing up by his adopted family and his own brother ( you will have to read it to understand the while messed up part) and have everything he faced some to a crashing haul when Kiara said the 3 words he never heard towards him, and then he finds out hes a father not just to a teenage girl but that is own Kiara is caring, his world comes crashing down.