Horn lickin' good

Or at least I HOPE this book will be. I've been waiting for Rydstrom's story since...oh well, I guess since his character was first introduced. And this evening while out looking for deals at K-Mart, I found the book and it was cheaper than borders, so...

'Scuze me while I go spend my Friday night in a productive manner. Reading!

Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night

Ok, I guess I was just a little too optimistic last week when I thought I would be able to write five reviews in five days. This should have been up on Friday. But real life (aka work, school, boyfriend) intervened. Alas.

Let's get back to the magickal mystery tour. Our last entry took us around the world and back again on the Talisman Hie. This race to the finish included our new hero Bowen MacReive. He's Lykae and from the same clan as Lachlain (he of A Hunger Like No Other fame). Bowen or Bowe as his friends call him has a bit of an attitude issue. Quite frankly, the guy is a major sourpuss. He has good reason to be. Lykae mate for life and since he lost his mate just after they got together, he is doomed to live out the rest of his long immortal existence alone. No mate. No lurve. The angst. It drags. Us. All. Down. With. Him.

But wait! Remember that the prize for winning the Hie is a magickal key that allows one to travel in time? Of course Bowe figures that all he has to do is win that key, then go back in time and save his mate and live happily ever after. Armed with this fledling hope, the man is on a mission. He attacks each challenge in the Hie with single-minded devotion and when he finds himself in an ancient burial chamber with Mariketa the Awaited (a witch) he has no qualms in grabbing the gold and sealing her in the tomb. He's seen that she can work powerful magick and figures that she'll be out of there in a jiffy, but at least he'll have slowed down another competitor. All's fair in love and war, right?

Wrong!

Mari stays trapped in that cave (along with some other magickal beings) and is tormented by incubii. Ewwww! Bowe finishes (loses) the Hie and comes back to find that he's enemy of the public numero uno. If he doesn't go back into the South American jungle and rescue Mari, an inter-species war is going to break out. Och!

Rescuing Mari and the other magickal beings turns out to be more complicated than just getting them out of the cave. They have to slog through the rainforest on foot, staying out of the way of warring rebel factions and squabbling amongst each other. Bowe has the hots for Mari but he doesn't trust his instincts because he is convinced that Mari's magick is messing with his mind. Mari wants to strangle Bowe for being such an overbearing boor (but secretly she has a thing for him as well). They fight and make up. Quite a few times, in fact. There is a lot of trudge and grudge. Trudge through the jungle, hold grudges against the other. Bowe is hardly a prince charming. His idea of romance is telling Mari that she might be his mate Mariah reincarnated (how else can he explain his urges towards her...Lykae only mate once after all). Charming indeed.

What doesn't really work is the overly plotty and convoluted ending as well as the pacing of the story in general. It goes in bursts and therefore my attention goes in the same manner. Up and down. What does work is the sexual tension between the lead characters. It's believable and it's hot, and I like that part. Also, there are some very interesting secondary characters that are probably getting set up for their own books. (I am SO ready to read about the hot (heh) rage demon king Rydstrom, gimme that book now please!)

Oh well. I'd still be game for the next installment.

Grade: C+

No Rest for the Wicked by Kresley Cole

No Rest for the Wicked picks up right where A Hunger Like No Other left off. Valkyrie warrior heroine Kaderin "the Cold Hearted" (it's kind of like a WWF name, get it?) is preparing to enter her fifth Hie. The Talisman's Hie is described as the Amazing Race for the immortal set. I've never seen either show (though I hear the Hie kicks AR's collective ass) but the exotic locals and derring-do adventures that the competitors go through reminded me of a cross between Indiana Jones and TombRaider. Kaderin has won this competition for the past millenium or so. It takes a combination of daring, hard work, skill and downright ruthlessness to succeed. And she's got all of those fine qualities in spades.

When not traipsing around the world seeking ancient treasures for an inter-species scavenger hunt, Kaderin's day job (or night job as the case may be) is killing vampires. After losing her two sisters in an epic battle against the evil Horde variety of vampires, Kaderin's got something of a bone to pick with those bloodsuckers. I bet you can't even imagine who fate has got HER matched up with? *blinking innocently*

Sebastian Wroth never wanted to be a vampire. Turned against his will by a brother who wanted to save him from death, he has spent the past centuries alone and depressed. When Kaderin the Vampire Slayer comes a-calling at his castle, he's ready to shake off this immortal coil and welcomes the killing blow she's ready to mete out. But something about him makes her hesitate at the last moment. And before you can say 'fated to be mated' (I'm starting to like that phrase, heh) his vampire heart begins to beat. Which means that he has found his Bride. Too bad for him that said Bride is a lean mean fighting machine with zero interest in emotions or love and a serious prejudice against vampires.

Thus begins a really fantastic romp around the world. The sensual game of cat and mouse between these two is interwoven with the larger arc of the Hie, as they travel to exotic and forbidding parts of the globe. Kaderin has a driving need to win this one as the ultimate prize is a time-traveling key that might offer her the hope of rescuing her sisters from their fate. For his part, Sebastian joins up with the somewhat sweet idea of winning the prize for his prospective GF, not really realizing what a freaking FORCE of nature this gal is to be reckoned with. But here's the thing. Rather than get all stompy alpha male about the fact that Kaderin can take care of things, he's supportive of her and uses his unique skills (like that vampire trick of tracing) to help her whenever he can. It's super sweet and really damn hot, the way these two clash and yet still work together throughout a variety of hair-raising adventures.

"We've got to stop this," she whispered, even as she moved her fist on him. "These beasts..."
"Are suitably terrifying. Doubtless." he pressed a brief hot kiss to her mouth, then met her eyes again. "Appreciate it if you'd keep...stroking."

Cole keeps the sexual tension-o-meter on high pretty much the whole way through and this combined with the excitement of the Hie makes this book damn near impossible to put down. As my bud lisabea pointed out to me the other day, these books really do follow the road-romance type. And we've already established that I'm a sucker for those.

I really had a great time reading this book. Strong heroines are a hard character to get right. They so often end up as either unsympathetic ball-busting stereotypes or (worse) faux warriors that are really just looking for the right man to take over for them. Kaderin is neither. She's a complex woman with her own motivations and a history that has shaped her. Ultimately, her ability to face her fears and allow herself to feel emotion is a reflection of her courage and I really respected that. The catalyst for this thawing is of course the steady and dependable wooing of Sebastian. And he's no slouch in the courage department either. He realizes that if Kaderin wins the key and travels back in time, he risks losing her forever. And he's willing to help her do it despite the cost to himself. Clearly, the man is a romance hero to fall in love with.

I heartily recommend this book. Run out and buy it right now. Even if you don't read the others in the series, this one is well worth your time. I'm supposed to be sending it to CJ about now, but I am feeling the need to reread just once more before passing it along. Enjoy!

Grade: A-

A Hunger Like No Other by Kresley Cole

I'd read some of Cole's books before now, trying to see what all the fuss was about. Frankly, the two that I read (both featuring pirates/andor/seafaring which I usually love) were pretty bad and I thought that whatever the hype was, it was obviously misdirected. Then my good buddy lisabea sent me the first three installments of the Immortals After Dark series. Aha! Now I get it. These were seriously entertaining.

A Hunger Like No Other has the unenviable task of being the first introduction to this new world and suffers a bit from the strain of setting up the world, establishing the parameters, introducing the various characters, the various races and their feuds, etc. There are a LOT of immortals running around and they all seem to have quite a history with each other.

Our story begins with Lachlan MacReive, the leader of the Lykae (werewolves), being tortured for a few hundred years beneath the catacombs in Paris. The dastardly vampires put him down there and since he is blessed (cursed?) with immortality, every time he burns and dies, he wakes up and lives again...only to keep burning. Um, ouch? Lucky for Lachlan, his one true wuv aka MATE happens to walk across the ground above him and being the extra-sensory perceptive immortal that he is, he can feel that she's there. His instincts kick in bigtime and this gives him an extra boost of power to throw off the shackles and free himself...but only after ripping one of his legs off. Well, hey at least he's free and can regenerate minor things like missing limbs.

Lachlan's mate Emma is a half-breed. Born of a Valkyrie mother and a vampire (oh noes!) father, she is blissfully unaware that a big angry Scottish wolf-man has the hots for her. Until of course, he finds her, kidnaps her and comes onto her in a majorly alpha male way. Oh it's steamy stuff and only in the first chapter! (inwardly, I gave a cheer, outlook for hot sexy book favorable!) However, despite all the rough and provocative almost-sex, Emma and Lachlan spend the majority of the book fighting about how she doesn't buy into this whole mate thing and Lachlan fighting himself over the fact that he's meant to be with a vampire (remember the bit about them torturing him for 200 odd years). Emma was raised by a coven of kick-arse Valkyrie warrior women and she has always been the timid protected one. Throughout most of the book it is like she can't decide who she is. At times she is so whiny and TSTL as to make me shake with rage. At others, she grows a backbone out of thin air and dislocates Lachlan's jaw. You go girl. Just figure out which of your multiple personalities you want to settle on and then give me a call when it's over.

So did I mention the sexxoring? It's pretty hot stuff, although Cole makes us wait for the big moment of truth. I suppose that's the difficulty of using this 'fated to be mated' concept. Where's the tension if they're together from page one? So instead we have lots of near misses, hot buildups without the payoff and sexy naked showers. heh. Well, no one ever said that lots of foreplay wasn't a good thing.

The action picks up near the end of the book and Emma gets a chance to save the world (apparently she decides that the strong her is the personality she's going to stick with after all). Her Valkyrie aunties get a chance to make me really weary of them. Lachlan gets a chance to ditch his fake Scottish accent...oh wait, no that didn't happen. Lachlan gets a chance to move beyond his prejudices and accept that love conquers all. Awww, it really is romantic.

Despite some frustrations, overall this was a very fun read. I appreciated that women in this alternate universe are not wrapped in cotton wool and that they're allowed to have some good dialogue lines too. And I think that Cole has set up a very interesting world and I look forward to spending more time in it.

Grade: B-