Pleasure of a Dark Prince
3 Stars

The Immortals After Dark is an excellent series and I had been eagerly awaiting Lucia and Garrett’s book ever since they were introduced in A Hunger Like No Other. Unfortunately, the book and their romance fell flat.

The first 1/3 rehashes the plots from the first two Lykae books. While the parallel storylines in the series are nothing new and usually mesh well, this recurring element is becoming tiresome and contributes little to Garrett and Lucia’s story. In fact, the narrative jumps forward one whole year after this section, which emphasizes its redundancy.

The romance is lackluster despite the excellent sexcapades. Lucia is quite bland as far as IAD heroines go. Yes, she suffers from a traumatic past but this is glossed over in the book and she seems to get over her fears of sex and vows of chastity very easily. Moreover, she comes across as childish and self-centered, and her constant “woe is me because sex will make me lose my archery skills” (which were never really hers to begin with) becomes annoying. She also has a tendency to keep secrets, which is a trope that I dislike intensely in contemporary romance and is out of place in PNR. Rather than confide in Garrett and work with him to defeat Cruach, she evades, prevaricates and lies, which ultimately gets them both into trouble.

Garrett, on the other hand, is far more likeable. He is sexy, strong and determined and his passion for Lucia is tangible despite the fact that it is impossible to see why his infatuation with her turns into love even with the dictates of Lykae mating. That said, the ultimate resolution to their relationship is satisfying.

The villain, while evil and disgusting, never seems to pose a substantial threat and the final encounter with him is predictable and anti-climactic.

Lothaire is the most compelling character in the book. The section in the Necropolis with him along with the epilogue are particularly intriguing and have definitely whet my appetite for the next three books. ( )

[b:Pleasure of a Dark Prince|6337006|Pleasure of a Dark Prince (Immortals After Dark, #8)|Kresley Cole|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1357612049l/6337006._SY75_.jpg|6522883] by [a:Kresley Cole|4428|Kresley Cole|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1328377628p2/4428.jpg]
Genres: Adult Paranormal, Romance, Suspense
4.75 Stars

Kresley Cole's story telling skills are absolutely top-notch.

The Pleasure of a Dark Prince starts at a breakneck speed & refuses to relinquish its hold on your psyche throughout the entire story.

Garreth is the Dark Prince and Lucia is the Archer.
Both are powerful personalities.
This is their story and you will not be able to put in down. ( )

Lucia is a Valkyrie and Skathi warrior which means she vowed to live a life of purity to the Goddess Skathi in order to be an expert archer. Lucia rarely misses her target but when she does, she experiences agonizing pain.

Skathi saved her from a life of unimaginable horror. Well, actually, her sister Regin saved her and then took her to the Goddess Skathi. Lucia was tricked by a gorgeous man into marrying him just to find out he wasn’t a gorgeous man but a deformed evil monster named Crom Cruach who wanted to breed with her and take over the world or rather cause an Apocalypse by infecting humans who would then kill the ones they loved the most. Lucia spent nine horrifying days with Crom Cruach and when she couldn’t take it any longer, jumped from his cave high up on a mountaintop to the sea below. She didn’t expect to live but her twelve-year-old sister Regin found her broken body and took it to Skathi.

Lucia and Regin are the only ones who know about Crom Cruach and spend most of their time looking for a dieumort, a weapon that will kill a god. Crom Cruach sleeps for hundreds of years but wakes every five hundred or so years and he’s about to awaken again. Lucia knows because she has started having nightmares and they will only get more frequent as the time approaches his awakening.

Lucia and Regin have heard of a golden arrow, a dieumort, so they set off to find it but things are made more difficult by a Lykae named Garreth MacRieve determined to make Lucia his own. He follows them across the world but Lucia and Regin don’t make it easy for him. They are brutal in the things they do to stop him like shooting arrows into him and unloosing the logs from an eighteen-wheeler to roll on top of him. In the end, Regin was sent home and Garreth caught up to Lucia. She’ll need all her strength to resist him to keep her Skathi archery skills so she can kill Crom Cruach when he awakens.

I enjoyed this book but I think it is one of my least favorite from the series, not because the characters were lacking but the background story-building wasn’t as busy as most of the other books in this series have been. Lothaire, the mysterious vampire, was in this book but not much more until the epilogue. Don’t get me wrong, this was an outstanding book. Everything Kresley Cole writes is exceptional but it was just my least favorite of the series so far. From here, the series explodes. There won’t be a moment of dullness from here on out.

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I think this got a little weaker at a couple points near the end, but overall I still enjoyed it more than average, so I'm going with 4 stars. I really liked all the patience the hero showed the heroine. Too often heroes are given a hair trigger and are always just one little blip away from turning cruel or something. This hero was definitely a tough, warrior type, but he also showed quite a bit of patience even when there were mixed signals or difficult circumstances. His consideration is definitely one of the things that warms the heroine to him, and that was really nice to watch. I've noticed that characters often are either good with the small signs of respect and kindness and stuff, but then fail some test of sacrifice near the end, or they're kind of a jerk half the time during the day to day but then come through in a big way in the end. This hero held up well for both, and it made me like him more. ( )

still loving how the women give the men hell in these books. I love Garrett I wish more guys were like him. I loved the ending how it told you how each was kidnapped ( )