Lighting the Darkness A Carnival of Mysteries Book
Fantasy, Paranormal, Gay Romance
Rocky Ridge Books
Aug 14th, 2024
Kindle
290
Amazon
Only Light can balance Darkness.
Lio wakes in someone else’s battered body with plenty of questions but no answers. Who is he? Who are the strangers who rescued him? Why do they call him Tenebris and Darkness? And why does everyone treat him like a feral dog about to attack?
Bel Am’I’s home world of Domus died moments after his escape, trapping him in the human realm with a clear mission. As Light, he must prevent Darkness from destroying Terra and the Domusians who’ve escaped there. Failure will doom billions to certain death, but how can he locate and balance a single, hidden being who doesn’t want to be found?
A mysterious carnival unites Lio and Bel, who must work together to uncover Lio’s true identity and stop him from accidentally annihilating the world. Yet someone doesn’t want them to succeed, someone who will stop at nothing to achieve the total destruction of both realms—even pitting Light against Darkness.
The battle for the end begins…
Lighting the Darkness is part of the multi-author Carnival of Mysteries Series and a side story to Eden Winters' Darkness. Each book includes at least one visit to Errante Ame’s Carnival of Mysteries, a magical, multiverse traveling show full of unusual acts, games, and rides. The Carnival changes to suit the world it’s on, so each visit is unique and special. This book contains characters from Darkness as well as new ones, alternate realms, a twist on soul mates, and bad guys. I mean, evil, horrible, terrible guys. Definitely the type you wouldn’t bring home to Mother. And one cookie-baking demon.
Review By Ulysses
Member of the Paranormal Romance Guild Review Team
This is a lovely, lyrical book, spinning a story that is fantastical and romantic—and also probably a metaphor if you care to look that deeply. Eden Winters has drawn the Carnival into the story in a more—radical?—way than other authors in this second series have (so far).
Bel Am’I is a high-ranking young princeps in Domus, an ethereal realm with winged people and a rigid social hierarchy. As his world literally falls apart, Bel Am’I is sent off to Earth—known as Terra—to track down a Tenebris (the word means darkness) and to find a way to balance his destructive potential. Bel Am’I is a Lux—meaning light. He is as rare a being as the Tenebris is, and he has no idea what he is supposed to do.
Beings of Domus can only live in Terra by taking over the body of a dying human. Bel Am’I does this, inhabiting a big burly redhead after he and his husband are both killed in a car crash. Bel Am’I escapes from the hospital where his host has died, and somehow finds his way to the Carnival. There he is renamed Bellamy by none other than Errante Ame himself.
In that way that things happen whenever and wherever the Carnival appears, Bellamy finds Lio, the Tenebris from Domus, left for dead in the desert. Together, with the Carnival’s guidance, these two young exiles must figure out what to do. Both of them learn from the memories of their dead hosts, and from watching the new world around them.
Of course there are unexpected complications, and I won’t go into that. What is most notable here is that Errante Ame, master of the Carnival of Mysteries, plays an active role in this particular adventure. We learn more about who Ame is than we have ever learned before, and it really changes our perception of what the Carnival is.
I’m curious as to whether this is done by chance, or if the authors in this new season were given latitude (instructions?) to push the envelope regarding the nature of the Carnival further than in the first season. In any case, it’s fascinating, disturbing, and emotionally charged all the way through. In one way, Bellamy and Lio are just a couple trying to deal with their feelings as they cope with a pairing that is not accidental. Each of them has two backstories: those of their human hosts, and from their lives on Domus before its destruction. Winters gives us lots to think about as these young men find their way in a world they struggle to understand.
If you haven’t read Rachel Langella’s “Gods and Monsters” this was the last book of season one and in it the authors who created the Carnival gave us a lot more info about Errante Ame that is informing this season’s stories.