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I enjoyed the beginning and, unlike a lot of people, I really liked all the Native American history. But there were plot holes that I just couldn't get over. I mean--not to give many spoilers--the heroine did something majorly wrong and everyone forgave her waaaay too easily. It just didn't seem realistic. If you can overlook things like that, it was a great book. I really did enjoy it.
Plus, the extra bonus scene at the end is WONDERFUL!!! ( )

I mostly liked this because I love the Dark-Hunter world. I contemplated giving it 2 or 2.5 stars as I couldn't really get into it too much. ( )

19 Retribution
I love Sherrilyn Kenyon and the Dark-Hunter books but the last few books have had too much Indiana Jonesish action going on for my taste. Rather than excite me with all the non-essential action, it irritates me. I think of it as filler to make a short book longer and I usually try to skip over it. The one thing that kept me from skipping over the many action scenes in this book, was the humor. Sherrilyn Kenyon knows how to insert humor into the direst of situations which is one of the reasons I love her writing.
We met William Jessup “Sundown” Brady way back in book #3, Dance with the Devil when he helped Zarek in Alaska. He was the only Dark-Hunter who befriended Zarek and stood behind him when everyone else wanted Zarek dead. Sundown or Jess was an outlaw in the late 1800s who was trying to settle down and change his ways when his best friend killed him. It was his wedding day and he was on his way into the church with his best friend Bart behind him when Bart shot him in the back for the reward money. Artemis heard Sundown’s call for vengeance and made him a Dark-Hunter. She showed him what Bart did after he died which was kill his bride Matilda’s father and the priest and then rape her.
Matilda went on to marry someone else and had a bunch of children. Sundown made sure she was taken care of financially though. He hired a lawyer and anonymously set up a fund for Matilda, saying it was from some distant uncle. The child she had from Bart’s rape was adopted out.
Recently, Sundown was moved from Reno to Las Vegas because someone is killing Dark-Hunters in Nevada so he has been relocated to replace one of the Dark-Hunters who was killed. Rumor is that it is a woman who leads a few Daimons who has been killing them. His friend Ren, a Were-Hunter and Dark-Hunter, relocated with him.
Abigail hates Sundown with a passion. He was friends with her parents and then he turned on them and murdered them. She hid under the bed and saw his boots and then his face in the mirror. She was then adopted and raised by an Apollite family who told her that Dark-Hunters torture and kill innocent Apollites for no reason but the joy of it. To enhance her skills, her adopted brother and sister along with two friends and a doctor, merge her DNA with that of a demon. Now, she has become a vigilante and has been killing Dark-Hunters. Her biggest goal is to kill Sundown.
When Sundown chases a couple of Daimons who are dragging a woman down into the sewers, he learns it is a trap when the woman turns on him and starts fighting him and then tries to bite him. Her two friends run off but he manages to knock her out. Her face reminds him of a mixture between Matilda and Bart and he realizes who she is. Years ago, he met a woman named Laura who was a descendent of Matilda and Bart. She looked just like Matilda so he knew immediately who she was but he had her ancestry traced to be sure. He became friends with her and continued that friendship after she married and had a child, Abigail. But someone brutally murdered Laura and her husband and it was thought that Abigail was taken and probably also killed by the murderer. Now he knows she lived.
I cracked up at some of the way Sundown speaks. While he was fighting Abigail, he asks her why she is trying to kill him and she asks him, “Why do you think?” He says, “Other than the fact that you’re as loco as a three-tailed cat in a rocking chair factory, I’m as clueless as a newborn colt.”
The sun is about to come up so he rushes to his gigantic mansion with Abigail. He puts her downstairs in a bedroom suite. When she wakes up, she tries to attack him and accuses him of killing her parents. He tries to tell her that he did not kill her parents but she didn’t listen at first.
Zarek, a former Dark-Hunter turned god, pops in and tells them that some fool decapitated a Guardian. Abigail asks if they are talking about the Native American Dark-Hunter and tells them that she killed him. Zarek tells her that he wasn’t a Dark-Hunter but a Guardian of the West Lands and that he was guarding some of the worst evils possible like a couple of plagues, some weather anomalies and something called the “Grizzly Spirit”. Now that he is dead, those evils can be set free and the balance needs to be set right. And how do they do that? Choo Co La Tah (I shit you not, that is his name) has to go to the Valley of Fire and offer up a sacrifice of the one who killed Old Bear. Zarek passed a wry grin to Abigail, “That’d be you, sweet cheeks.” Then Zarek vanishes.
Abigail doesn’t believe it at first and tells Sundown that her friend Jonah did recon on all her _targets first and he would have known if Old Bear wasn’t a Dark-Hunter but then an earthquake hits so they turn on the tv which is showing giant cracks in the earth with millions of scorpions boiling out of them. The basement floor buckles and cracks and scorpions start coming towards them. They run out and jump on Sundown’s bed. He breaks the ceiling open and they try to escape to the first floor but something invisible grabs Abigail. Sundown uses all his power to pull her up. It starts snowing. Then a bunch of shape-shifting coyotes start attacking them until a wolf jumps in and saves them. The wolf turned out to be Sasha who we also met in Dance with the Devil. The coyotes run away. Ren and Choo Co La Tah who is the Guardian of the North show up too.
Choo Co La Tah and Ren who is also Native American explain that there are four Guardians or were before Abigail killed one. They tell this rather long and drawn out tale about how there was some huge battle that ended up with four Guardians of the earth, two evil and two good. Old Bear was good. Now Coyote and Snake, the evil ones, have joined forces and are trying to take over. Coyote knows that Abigail has to go to the Valley of Fire before dawn of the next day so Choo Co La Tah can perform a sacrifice ritual and he wants to stop that from happening so he is sending out bounty hunters and unleashing his plagues in order to get her before they reach the Valley.
Abigail mostly believes it. She also sees that Sundown is treating her well and wonders why her family never told her about Daimons and why they lied about Dark-Hunters. She is also having visions of Sundown’s past and her past and sees the truth. But what does the dumb twit do? She runs from them. Why oh why do female leading ladies always run from the good guys when they know they will be killed by the bad guys? Abigail wanted to confront her adopted sister and brother and ask them questions. She steals a super expensive car and goes to their house and ends up killing their friend, Jonah, who explodes into dust. If she wasn’t a believer before, she now is. She leaves and runs into Sundown…literally…she ran a stop sign and clipped the back wheel of his bike.
She becomes altruistic and decides to let them sacrifice her for the sake of the world.
Here’s a little rundown, without trying to spoil the book about some of the things that happened to them in the span of a few short hours. A plague of wasps gets unleashed. They pull into car wash and have sex with each other while hiding from the wasps. Meanwhile innocent humans are being killed by the wasps. A mountain lion jumps on the hood of the car and tries to kill them. Choo Co La Tah goes into a coma but wakes up. Bloodfire rains down on them. Something hits their Bronco and it goes off the freeway and flips and weird looking monsters fight them. That is all before they get to the Valley of Fire.
Now do you see why I was a little irritated by all the action? I thought it a little much.
There was way more to this story that that there is also the legend of Buffalo and Butterfly who were cursed by Coyote to never find each other in any reincarnation because he was jealous. But you will have to read the book for that story.
I think the humor and Sasha’s sarcasm got me through this book. The story and plot were excellent but the constant action drove me insane. I kept stopping and doing other things and then coming back to it. I know this story continues in Time Untime which is book #21 and I look forward to it but I am glad there is another book in between so I get a little break.

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Not a fan of this arc of the series. It fell out of kilter with the others. ( )

I loved this story, I lived the apocalyptic value of it. I loved the native American value as well, with their ow. Guardian's and folklore. I especially enjoyed the way that Jess and Abigail weren't destined to be together, like they were fated from the beginning of time, and they were named as animals and gad to go through many life quests to be together. AND OMG!!!!!the birth of Ash and Story's baby how intense was that?!?!?! All in all this series is still as good as the first book when Julian came onto my life. ( )

Another amazing addition to an amazing series. Keep up the fantastic work Sherrilyn! ( )

So this was definitely not my favorite in the series. The main characters were ok, but didn't really interest me. The book was more about Native American mythology, rather than Roman. I find it hard enough keeping all the old Gods straight, now we have to learn a whole new mythology? This might have been better as a new series, not trying to fit it into the Dark Hunter universe. Towards the end, I was just wishing the book would be over. And seriously, all those plagues unleashed on Las Vegas, and the humans are supposed to not know about the existence of the Dark Hunter world? It is getting hard to believe that the humans don't know what is going on. ( )

I mostly liked this because I love the Dark-Hunter world. I contemplated giving it 2 or 2.5 stars as I couldn't really get into it too much. ( )

I was going crazy without another Dark Hunter book. I craved a new book in this series. I can't say it's my favorite in the series (I'm saving that space for Acheron's book and for Savitar's, whenever his book will be released) but I like the new angle, the new direction this book takes.

I loved Jess, the gunslinger. I liked the idea of him being the bad boy of his time, the man that makes every other people shake in fear, even if he was bad for a good reason. I adored his relationship with his Squire. Reminded me a little of Kyrian and Nick.

I liked the new pantheon. I also like the fact that Kenyon is mixing the Dark Hunter universe with the whole Apocalypse and the 2012 myths and I can't wait to see how the story develops later in The Guardian and in Time Untime.

Abigail's character was also fresh. I don't think there was another character who hated the Hunters so much and who, ironically, ended up in love with one. Yes, Stryker does hate the Dark Hunters, but he didn't marry one, thank God!

I think this is one of the few series I've read that even after twenty books can keep things fresh and appealing. Or at least that's how I feel. I do believe that Sherrilyn Kenyon is doing an amazing job with this series and I can't wait to see what happens next. Maybe we'll see more of Savitar in the near future? ( )

As a whole its great as a stand alone book. But, as part of a series,I was slightly disapointed. It's just too over the top with it attempting to blend the various mythologys together. ( )

It just didn't suck me in like the rest of the series has. I'm not really sure what it was the characters just didn't do it for me I guess. Overall not bad, but I was definitely expecting more. ( )

Nice to read a Dark-Hunter book again. Jess died as a trying to reform gunslinger on the way to his wedding, by his best friend. Abby is the great-something-grandaughter of his best friend's rape of Jess' intended bride. Yea, shot in the back and then your bride-to-be is raped by your 'best friend'. Abby believes that Jess killed her parents when she was three and so grows up hating him and all Dark Hunters. Helps that she's being raised by Appollites. So thanks to her the world is facing an apocalypse. Not a bad ride to the finish line, wonder who will be next? ( )

A little hard to follow - got bogged down in the folklore. ( )

3.5 stars. It was totally different compared to most Dark Hunter books but still good. Absolutely LOVED the bonus scene at the end! ( )

4 ½ stars ( )

Wow... uhmm... boring mostly.
All new bad boys and mythology. Yes, she puts a little of the other characters in Sasha is back as is Zarek but only for a little bit. We meet Jessup Sundown in Zareks story ages ago. What we get here is a bunch of new mythology from American Indian's to add to the already expanding, Olympic, Atlantian, Sumerian, Primal power, demon, damion, were-hunter, dark-hunter, demon hunter (sorry cannot remember the name here but Fang is one of them and Thorn is the head), etc... and let's not go into the types of demons, charonte, gallu, slug, dimi, etc... Sorry but it seems as every other book is introducing us to new bad guys and mythologies. I get that it is leading to the time-untime or 12-12-12 the end of the Mayan calender but... I'd just like to get back to the basics.

This story was semi OK in romance and boring in the continuing Dark Hunter saga. New North, South, East and West guardians of American Indian legend are introduced and one has a grudge against Jesse (or Jess, Jessup, Jessie or Sundown). You get plagues released by a couple of the guardians and Jess and his friends running for life and to stop the end of the world. This did give a little action but it seemed contrived just to make this a novel instead of novella.

The bonus chapter in the end of the book with Ash and Tori and Tori having her baby had nothing to do with the rest of the story and should have been offered either as a novella or on her website. I was happy to get this little tidbit but was disappointed as many others were in parts of it.

1. Tori wishes Ash could have the pain of childbirth. Does she know he has been through worse and easily would take something so little for her. I've done it twice, naturally, with long drawn out labors and never have wished my husband castrated or even cursed him. For her to even suggest that to Ash, who has been castrated was sad.

2. For Ash to promise anything to Artemis was just too much for me. He should promise to release his mother on her if she didn't help, not vise versa. Sorry that just pissed me off and we all know Ash would lose it if Tori were to die. As for Artemis's turn around, and it points to Nick as the reason, I don't know how Kenyon is going to pull that off but I doubt I'll think it makes sense. Artemis has been selfish for thousands of years, it is not going to change by loosing Ash and gaining Nick. Nick getting the souls now, that was totally predictable from the scene in Acheron, at the end, where Artemis and Nick are commiserating outside the wedding, looking longingly in.

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This story was absolutely delightful! I loved both Sundown and Abby, they were both confused and hurt, but decided in the end to trust their feelings, and what they could be together.

The mythology was excellent, we learned so much more about things, and old curses and legends, and it was great to learn more about Ren as well. The mix between cowboy, native American and dark-hunter was really something that made this book even more of a page-turne than usual.

Andy, Jess' squire was so funny, even more funny than Nick used to be :)

And the bonus scene in the end was almost like a whole other book in itself, although it really was short and sweet. I loved the birthscene, when Tory had trouble actually having her baby leave her womb, and that Simi, Ash's mom, and other friends were around for it. Simi cracked me up with still wanting to BBQ Artemis :D And Artemis really came through in the end! I hope what she said was for real! ( )

Received for review
Overall Rating 4.25
Story Rating 4.00
Character Rating 4.50
Mythology Rating 4.25

NOTE: I am a HUGE Dark Hunters fan so I eagerly count down to each and every installment in the series. My favorite ones where mythology (of every type) plays a major role. Retribution will rank in my favorites of the series.

What I Loved: I loved the Native American mythology track in Retribution. Sherrilyn Kenyon is brilliant at taking current myths and legends and building them into her world. I think Jess and Abi were perfect characters to build the Butterfly and Buffalo myth around. I also can't wait to see this mythology mix in with the rest of the series. There were just as many hilarious moments, which always are my favorites and the bro-mances abound.

What I Liked: (Not giving anything away) The Epilogue was a great way to end this book. I liked that it was put at the end as not to distract from Jess and Abi's story.

Complaints: I still can't say "chocolates" name :)

Why I gave it a 4.25: On mythology alone, this will be one of my favorite Dark Hunter novels (the shifters are still my absolute favorites) ( )

William Jessup Brady was a hired gunslinger who changed his ways when he met a woman who loved him. This all ended in betrayal and Artemis gave him a second chance at vengeance and he took it. Now he protects people and tries to come to terms with his new life.

Avigail Yager was orphaned as a toddler and she doesn't remember much of the night her parents died except that the Daimons or Vampires who adopted her have told her it was a darkhunter and specificially Brady. She is determined to kill him, however things change when they meet.

It's pretty typical Kenyon fare, I enjoyed the read, the series is getting more and more complicated as time goes on and the twists are getting a little more strained. Still it's an entertaining read. ( )

I love Kenyon and her Dark-hunter series but I preferred when there was more Greek mythology to them. The new ones, such as this use Native American history and while it's intersting, it's also not explained as well unless you know some of the history. Otherwise the story was overall fantastic! I love Abby and Jess together but I was disappointed in parts. ( )

I read this book in 5 hours. It wasn't that I particularly loved the book, but I did really enjoy it. I loved that it was set in Las Vegas. After having lived there for a while, it amused me to absolutely no end to see the plagues hit the city. I laughed. I wasn't too fond of the actual storyline so much as I was the actual setting of the book. I was glad it was over and am glad to be moving on to the next book. ( )

Dark-Hunter William Jess Brady, aka Sundown, was a ruthless killer while he lived. As a Dark-Hunter, he's fairly mellow. But something's taking out his friends, and rumor has it it's a human. Which is SO not right.

Abigail Yager is hunting down and slaughtering every Dark-Hunter she can get her hands on. Raised by Daimons, she's convinced the Dark-Hunters are bent on exterminating her family's people. Unfortunately, any being with pointy teeth is fair game, and when she kills one of the four Native American Guardians by mistake, she sets the forces of apocalypse in motion. Will Las Vegas be wiped off the map entirely?

Not sure how well introducing the Native American pantheon really works here, but it's a readable enough story even if Sundown and Abby aren't my favorite characters. ( )

full review on talksupe.blogspot.com

Now I usually love Kenyon romance because she knows how to write them and she really, really does it well. What cheapened Brady and Abigail's love story is when they made love for the first time in a car, inside a car wash place, while a swarm of wasps awaits them outside, thinking that they won't survive the onslaught. Like really?!?! It's like a scene taken from a bad adult movie.

But to compensate for this, Sherrilyn Kenyon wrote a bonus scene! Tory and Acheron are having a baby and we get an inside scoop on this event, afterall it won't be a Dark-Hunter book without Acheron stealing the scene. ( )

This was just what I'd been hoping for! I certainly enjoyed it more than I did the last Dark-Hunter novel, No Mercy, and it completely met my hopes. Can't wait to see what SK does next with the series and I love the new characters and mythology introduced! Sasha killed it in this one, he's awesome. ( )