Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Best Book I've Read in a Long Time!

I would like to think I am a logical, rational woman. But then a book I've been waiting on pins and needles for gets released and nothing gets done 'till I've finished reading it. This is why I hate the industry standard of releasing books on a Tuesday.

Yesterday at midnight, my pre-ordered copy of Krestley Cole's newest installment, "Lothaire" showed up on my Kindle. I knew it would, so I took a nap after work on Monday and stayed up late so I could read a few chapters. I have spent most of my "free time" (including time I really should have been sleeping) reading that book. I just finished it about 45 minutes ago.

This book was everything I had hoped it would be. Ms Cole's paranormal romance series called "Immortals After Dark" just keeps getting better and better rather than petering out like so many long-running romance series tend to do. I think the main reason for this is that she lets her bad guys be bad but still have some redeemable qualities that her good guys can fall in love with.

The title character of this newest book, an evil vampire named Lothaire, is a complete despot. By the end of the book, he's still a bit of a despot, but his spunkey Bride, Ellie, spends the whole book forcing him to change his ways enough that he learns to love, be a little selfless (at least toward her family) and most importantly, to stop assuming he his God's Gift To Women. Add Ms Cole's established cast of sarcastic seers, bat-shit crazy bad buys, lunatic Valkaries, combined with her signature hilarious one-liners made "Lothaire" a read I just couldn't put down. I sure hope this trend continues, because as usual, she set up the next story of the series in the last chapter and it looks like it could be the best yet!

8 comments:

Rebecca Gillan said...

Minor spoiler add here in the comments so you don't have to read it if you don't want to.

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My favorite scene of the book is when Lothaire literally rips his still beating black heart out of his chest and mails it to Ellie with a note telling her she is never going to get to sink her claws into another of his hearts. He response is to cut off her middle finger and mail it to him. The lunatic Valkyries, who were holding Ellie for ransom, loved the way she "gave him the bird" and let her go. (Valkyries, by the way, are not evil, just homicidal lunatics)

Savanna Kougar said...

LOL!... good gosh, that does sound funny.

So cool that Ms. Cole is able to sustain such a creative series. Kudos to her.

Rebecca Gillan said...

Yeah, I love her books. They are a nice mix of believeable plot, well-written love scenes, zaney characters, and highly quotabel one-liners. Her world is a chaotic mix of shapeshifters, lycans (who are not true shape shifters but are scary good guys), demons, vampires and just about every other mythological beastie out there. But the Valkyries are nutd-nuts-nuts and my favorite base character of her books.

Pat C. said...

Whoa! Intense! Anybody who can write the scene you described and make it sound plausable must be one hell of a writer.

And this is a romance? I feel so much better about my own stuff now. :)

Rebecca Gillan said...

It was very plausable. And hilarious. In Ms Cole's book-iverse, vampires can regenerate from any wound that doesn't flat-out kill them, wich leads to some very... interesting punishments. So 2 vampires cutting out/off body parts to have a long distance argument actually works. And Ellie wins this argument, too. I mean, how can you possibly top giving the guy who abandoned you to kidnapers your actual middle finger???

Serena Shay said...

LMAO...Yep, that seals the deal for me, mailing a dude your middle finger totally wins the argument!

Must start this series of books...Do they need to be read in order, Rebecca?

Rebecca Gillan said...

Nope! She does a decent job of telling enough back story and not involing other story lines that you can pretty much pick them up anywhere. I actually started with book 8 and read 'em as I found them.

Pat C. said...

So if a vampire's dick gets cut in half lengthwise, and both pieces regenerate while still attached...

No. Will. Not. Go. There.