Paranormal Romance Reviews

The last couple weeks have been slow and draggy in almost every way. I've been too lazy to even type these days. But, I picked up two paranormal romance novels I bought a while back in my continuing attempt to finish my TBD list of books now that I bought my Nook. But life conspired to make even reading them seem like a chore. I think, though, it had more to do with the books than anything else. The last 3 were just kind of meh to me.

 A Hunger Like No Other
By: Kresley Cole

Write up:


A mythic warrior who'll stop at nothing to possess her . . .

After enduring years of torture from the vampire horde, Lachlain MacRieve, leader of the Lykae Clan, is enraged to find the predestined mate he's waited millennia for is a vampire. Or partly one. This Emmaline is a small, ethereal half Valkyrie/half vampire, who somehow begins to soothe the fury burning within him.

A vampire captured by her wildest fantasy . . .
Sheltered Emmaline Troy finally sets out to uncover the truth about her deceased parents — until a powerful Lykae claims her as his mate and forces her back to his ancestral Scottish castle. There, her fear of the Lykae — and their notorious dark desires — ebbs as he begins a slow, wicked seduction to sate her own dark cravings. 

An all-consuming desire . . .
Yet when an ancient evil from her past resurfaces, will their desire deepen into a love that can bring a proud warrior to his knees and turn a gentle beauty into the fighter she was born to be?

You have to admit...this cover is pretty. I think that is what drew me to this book in the first place. It's very pretty---embarrassing to read in public---but pretty. During a buying frenzy a while back, I picked up a lot of paranormal romance books that have been recommended to me in the past or just looked interesting. But I have to say; reading them back to back can be a bit tiring...or sometimes make you want to poke your eyes out. They can be a bit repetitive.

This book started of with a good bit of promise.  The opening finds us in an underground chamber with Lachlain MacReive, who has been held there for centuries by his vampire enemies. His torture is to burn to death over and over again, with no end in sight because he is immortal and can’t die. Totally gruesome. He finally gets the needed motivation to escape his situation when he senses his mate close by, a mate he has waited centuries to find. See, he is a werewolf and they have one mate destined for them and it is for life. Once they find this mate, they are faithful only to them and are fierce in protecting them. If the mate rejects them...they can literally die of sorrow. So he is so desperate to go to his mate that he literally removes his own leg to escape his chains. Literally. Totally gruesome, but very compelling. So he breaks out and goes on the hunt for his woman. He finds her on the streets of Paris after scouring the streets for weeks. She is a sheltered half vampire that has never even been away from home before and knows a whole lot of nothing. Innocent and naïve like a newborn baby. Now here is this man running up to her on the street and demanding he come with him. 

Now this is where things get iffy for me. Here is a very large and angry man literally chasing you down in the streets. He kidnaps you, takes you to a hotel room where he proceeds to take liberties with your body despite your protests; he is not telling you why he is there or what is going on, and yells and screams at you that you are his when you ask any questions or try to escape. Frankly the only sane thing Emma did in this book, that made any sense, was to be scared of this person off the bat and try to run off at every opportunity. But that only lasted a couple chapters, because she would waver every so often because he was so hot and she was drawn to him or whatever. I know that the point was that she was drawn to him because of those crazy special magical forces that made her his mate, but come on?! Any sane woman would have run screaming to the nearest police station.

 When she found out about the whole mate thing, she still was trying to escape (e took her to his home where he told her she could not leave). He insisted that she was his and told her she was not to see her family or leave him. She, like any sane person faced with this predicament, wanted to get out so badly that she literally tricked him into draining a good bit of his blood that he passed out and she then booked it. But what happened? He got up, and chased after her and when he caught her she was so "relieved" that he still cared so much about her that he chased after her and still wanted her, and all their passions came up and they made wild love in the forest where he found her. What? So the message seems to be that she only ran so he could chase after her and prove that he really loves her? Then he gets to ravish her? Okay, I know in some romances you kind of let some things slide for the drama of it all, but maybe because of personal issues or I was reading too much feminist literature this week or something....but I found that entire sequence weird and annoying…and just a tad bit…what’s the word….crazy.  This whole book sent a weird and offensive message: crazy aggressive, bullying men are only that way because they love and need you so much. Yeah, I get it that they are vampires and wolves and they have animal mating instincts, with it's possessions and anger and aggressive emotions and all that, but it was still a bit too much for me to suspend to enjoy the book. The story itself was okay and the world created was really fund. But the main relationship was a bit too Stockholm syndrome for me. Plus, I don’t tend to enjoy book, where the tow main character love each other because they were brought together by unseen forces that made them mates for life…whether they like it or not.  I like choice. And storied where people en up together after a slow build up of getting to know each other and falling in love. Call me old fashioned.

Overall grade: C-