by Kresley Cole
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So, A Hunger Like No Other was my first ever romance. At sixteen I was on Rachel Caine’s website trying to decide if I’d like the Morganville Vampire series and I somehow found myself on Kresley Cole’s website looking at the summaries for her IAD books. It was late and very hot that night so I just gave up on it and forgot all about
And a year later I again go to Kresley Cole’s website through Rachel Caine’s, and this time I bought A Hunger Like No Other.
With the power of hind-sight and two solid years of reading mainly romance (I’d guess over a thousand books in the last two years) I can pretty safely say that A Hunger Like No Other is one of the best books I could have had as a transition.
Now I’ve always been a big paranormal fan and sadly my library was running out of fresh new paranormal books for young adults. So this was really right up my alley.
A Hunger Like No Other is the second book, but the first full length instalment in the Immortals After Dark series. The heroine is Emmaline Troy, the Valkyrie-Vampire halfing daughter of Helen of Troy. The hero is Lachlain, the Lykae king.
Lykae are basically werewolves, with a twist. They grow taller and more powerful when they ‘let the beast out of the cage’ and have a shadow of a wolf hang over them. They are also Scottish.
To the Valkyrie who have no need for food, the Lykae are brutish with their desire for touch and food. To Lachlain who has just escaped from 150 years of endless torture by the Horde, the Vampire alliance within the IAD world Emma who appears to be a straight vampire is a horrifying prospect. Especially when she appears to be his Mate also.
Lachlain captures her and takes her captive. He attempts to take her but his Instinct stops him and makes him realise that Emma’s seconds away from breaking mentally. In fact not long after he has to talk her off of a ledge, and while they’re both immortal, it’s pretty clear Emma is thinking and is hoping that the fall will kill her.
Lachlain lies to Emma, convincing her that she is not anything special to him, and promises to give her a pick of jewellery from his collection if she drives him to Kinevane in Scotland, the Lykae’s traditional base. Emma lured by the jewellery because of her Valkyrie heritage agrees.
The conflict between Emma and Lachlain is really well done, and the moments in Lachlain’s head where he longs for his Mate and later regrets hurting her feelings? So heart wrenching and because Cole is a brilliant writer with first place on my list of authors I would follow anywhere, she manages to do this in a way that Emma also sees some of these moments; so her reluctance to accept him is way easier to understand than in some other romances, where the reader sees that hero is awesome before the heroine does and it creates and odd disconnect.
The world-building is brilliant and so well done I wish I were reviewing the whole series so that I could explain in detail how brilliant all this is. Because it is. It is fantastically well done. But I will say that Cole draws you in and makes you a part of the world despite the fact that Emma and Lachlain are both a part of it too. This is rare when introducing the reader to a new world and takes up relatively no time.
The verdict is naturally that this book rocks and if you don’t know first-hand why are you reading this? It’s terrible, go pick up A Hunger Like No Other.
Currently Listening: A Thousand Years – Christina Perri
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