Review: Dark Time by Dakota Banks

Dark Time (Mortal Path, Book 1) by Dakota Banks

Urban Fantasy

Eos (July 28th, 2009)

ISBN: 978-0061687303

From Dakota-Banks.com:

Susannah Layhem, a healer unjustly accused of witchcraft in the 17th century, is ripped from her husband's arms and thrown in jail. Abandoned by her husband and friends, she's tied to a stake and set afire. Her raging bitterness draws one of seven ancient Sumerian demons. The demon Rabishu pulls her from the flames, and she signs a contract to live forever—if she does his evil work. Susannah becomes the Black Ghost, an Ageless assassin gifted with otherworldly skills and superbly trained in martial arts.


She obeys Rabishu's orders and remains a beautiful young woman. Then she's given an assignment she can't bear to carry out. She chooses the mortal path instead, and emerges from three centuries of reluctant service as the demon's slave. Now Maliha Crayne, she discovers the fine print of her contract. If she saves as many lives as she's taken, she'll ascend to a paradise straight out of Sumerian legend. If she fails, she faces eternal torment at Rabishu's hands. The ticking clock? Every time she saves a life, she ages. The deck is stacked against her. She's got her own agenda, though. Payback time—killing Rabishu and his kin before he gets his punishing claws on her.

Intimately tangled with Maliha's yearning for personal redemption is her thrilling quest to stop a villain from selling America's security to the highest bidder. For both goals, she will need to relearn what it means to be mortal, to reach out in friendship, and to dare to believe she can love again.

Dark Time is everything that the debut of a new urban fantasy series should be. Banks deftly employs Sumerian mythology and world history to propel the story of Maliha, a former assassin seeking redemption. As an Ageless servant of the demon Rabishu, Maliha has lived a long life - from the period of colonization in America up to present day. In order to give a complete picture of her story, Banks uses the first few chapters to jump from one period to the next. Once she hits the present, occasional flashbacks are used to draw more complete portraits of certain characters, events, and actions.

Banks' experience as a mystery writer is very evident here. The plot is nicely woven and manages to be involves without being convoluted. There are also a wealth of characters, which is believable given the extended age of the heroine, but they never become confused in the story.

As a heroine, Maliha is one of the best. She's intelligent and talented, has a great sense of humor, and knows how to take care of herself. Maliha is easy to sympathize with and is made all the more believable with her purely vengeful reasons for her initial deal with the demon. She's also found a good, helpful set of friends in some of the people that she has rescued in recent years. Amaro, a hacker who she saved as a teenager from gang violence; Yanmeng, a prisoner she freed during the Chinese Cultural Revolution with a set of powers of his own; and Hound, a Vietnam vet - that she rescued on the battlefield - turned private detective.

To top it all off, Maliha faces the challenge of opening her heart to man for the first time since her husband turned his back on her in the 17th century. Jake, a DEA agent who may be more than he seems, is sexy, smart, and tenacious among other things. I found myself falling right along with her.

Banks has done an excellent job on her urban fantasy debut and I'm sure that any fan of the genre will agree.

Grade: A