I went into this book relatively blind as Pepper Winters is an auto-read author for me and I honestly couldn’t remember what the blurb on the book was having read it long enough ago to forget.
With that in mind, Darkest Destiny ended up surprising me with how much I loved it and the depth with which it pulled me into its pages. I had no idea what to expect from it and I was so excited to see where the story would lead and left with many questions as to what was truly going on with the characters.
Lucien is the grumpy, tortured male lead and I was obsessed with him from the first sighting. I enjoyed the little snippets into his head with his POV chapters but felt they were just sparse enough to allow for his character to remain intriguing and mysterious which was perfect for both his character and the story. I feel like too much of his POV would have necessitated giving away too much of the plot and the many questions that he naturally creates and this thin line was traversed perfectly. Rook on the other hand was a tempestuous character for me as far as like vs. dislike. She came across as a bit of an irritating character with her laziness and cowardice as far as facing any kind of situation. However, there is a reason for this which provides a small respite for her, yet she still came across as jarring at times, which made me struggle to always like her. Whisper was the true MVP, stealing my heart with his cuddly cat energy despite being a big, menacing animal.
The story danced a fine line between all of the questions brought on by what is going on, why Rook and the various other women have been brought to Lucien for his blood, what his blood truly means, and the lack of questions truly given. At the end of the book I was still no clearer on what was really going on and I want to know what is truly going on very much. Surprisingly, it managed not to be frustrating despite the lack of clarity on what was going on and I just hope that this will become clearer with the next book. I very much want it right away because I am so intrigued and I look forward to the sequel. Another highly recommend for Pepper Winters’ latest book.
