My Love of Scottish Immortals & Kresley Cole

Pleasure of a Dark Prince
Immortals After Dark Series
Author: Kresley Cole
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Mass Market, 448 pages

Summary: From the shadows, Garreth has long watched over Lucia. Now, the only way to keep the proud huntress safe from harm is to convince her to accept him as her guardian. To do this, Garreth will ruthlessly exploit Lucia’s greatest weakness—her wanton desire for him. . . .

My Twitter buddy, K.C. at http://smokinhotbooks.com, wrote a review of Pleasure of a Dark Prince, and I ran out to buy it as soon as I finished reading her review. Yes, I have 72 books on my To Be Read Shelf From Hell, but K.C. reminded me that this book featured Garreth MacRieve, of the Scottish Lykae clan. Scottish. Werewolf. It's no secret that I love Kresley Cole's Immortals After Dark series. I reviewed it in January here.

Pleasure of a Dark Prince, hereafter known as PDP, actually takes place over a fairly long period of time. It's before A Hunger Like No Other, which is Lachlain & Emmaline's story and ends after Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night when Bowen & Mariketa get together. What does this mean? It means there are some very cool cameos in the book.

I loved PDP for a few reasons besides the Garreth and his accent, but let's review that first. Here are just two of my favorite lines:

"Aye, but to marry talent and beauty such as yours as well? Hardly sporting to other lasses." ... "And you could no' be bonnier."

"Doona want me?" His voice dropped to a low rumble. "Ah, lass, do you really want me to make a liar out of you?"

Besides Garreth's accent there is his inability to give up on Lucia, regardless of what she says or does to discourage him. However, he respects her unfailingly and knows that she needs him. He never forces himself on her, but at the same time he never gives up. I love that they are both warriors, different in their approaches, but both just as lethal. It makes for awe inspiring romance, and some very steamy interaction.

Lucia's personality was actually a surprise for me. After reading glimpses of her in the other books, I thought she might be too tough, or unemotional, but instead she is passionate, tortured and loyal to her family. She's also witty when the mood strikes her.

There are the regulars making appearances in PDP: Regin, Lucia's sister with her snarky, sometimes deadly, sense of humor appears and we learn a little more about her. Nix is there of course, causing problems and steering fate. Garreth's brothers, and Lucia's Valkyrie sisters all appear in and out of the story. There are some new characters we meet along the way that are very odd and horrifying at the same time. Others are quirky and mysterious. All of these elements add to the fast paced romance adventure.

PDP is one of my favorite books in the Immortals After Dark series. The humor, romance and the adventure were top notch. I shudder to write this, but even if Garreth didn't have his awesome Scottish accent I would have still loved the book.
(Shhh...don't tell Kresley Cole.)

The next book in the series will be Demon From the Dark and it will be released in September 2010.

~Moonsanity