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A Hunger Like No Other (Immortals After Dark, #1)

Kresley Cole

Start date: April 1, 2011

Finish date: May 1, 2011

Discussion: Group Reads

Discussion leader: Gemma

Why we're reading this: It won the April Poll!
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Group Reads

* Group Read Selection/Nomination Guidelines
By Danielle The… , Loves 'Em Lethal · 6 posts · 136 views

last updated Dec 19, 2012 08:46AM

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By Danielle The… , Loves 'Em Lethal · 3 posts · 80 views

last updated Jan 06, 2012 03:40PM

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What Members Thought

Feb 15, 2012 Beanbag Love rated it it was ok

This just didn't work for me. Very disjointed and clunky, with two-dimensional characters and a confusing introduction to several different PN entities.

Lachlain, king of the Lycae, has been held captive by vampires for a century and a half, chained to a wall and repeatedly burned to his bones before regenerating and starting the cycle again and again. The only things that keep him alive are thoughts of vengeance and the lifelong desire to find his destined mate.

Emmaline is half vampire/half Val This just didn't work for me. Very disjointed and clunky, with two-dimensional characters and a confusing introduction to several different PN entities.

Lachlain, king of the Lycae, has been held captive by vampires for a century and a half, chained to a wall and repeatedly burned to his bones before regenerating and starting the cycle again and again. The only things that keep him alive are thoughts of vengeance and the lifelong desire to find his destined mate.

Emmaline is half vampire/half Valkyrie. She's an orphan raised to be timid and weak by the Valkyrie side of her family and she's in Paris to attempt to learn who her father was/is/whatever (which makes no sense because they raised her to be terrified of her shadow so she would actually be protected ... then they let her run off to Paris on her own ... huh?). While there, she walks over top of where Lachlain is being held (he's deep underground) and he senses her, triggering enough strength for him to escape.

Sounds like an okay setup for a PNR, but the follow-through is laden with contradictions and contrived action. The "destined mate" story line is always problematic since it demands a lack of free will, however we also get some lame chatter later on in the book about how they wouldn't be together if they weren't naturally attracted by their own volition ... which kind of disproves the whole "destined mate" trope and fractures the believability of his reaction at the beginning. It's not only that, there were several moments where I felt: "if this is true, this can't be true and yet you're asking me to believe it's true". I did not enjoy reading this, it felt like work.

So why did I finish it and plan to read the next one? Because so many people who I usually agree with are devoted followers of this series. I hated the first installment of the Midnight Breeds series and went on to enjoy several of the later books very much. So -- maybe there's something here after getting this first clunky book out of the way.

I will definitely give this series another chance, but this opener is simply not good, IMO. However, it does seem to be necessary as an introduction to the mythology of the series, so proceed as you will. :) ...more

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