The Scarlet Deep (Elemental World, #3) in SOS: Serious Overload of Series

Jun 08, 2016 Monadh rated it it was amazing

Shelves: pnr, vampires

Elizabeth Hunter’s Elemental Mysteries / Elemental World series is some of the best UF / PNR I have read in years. I can’t believe I just discovered her recently; I haven’t been this excited since I stumbled upon my first Nalini Singh book while stranded at an airport. The world building is so original and she weaves such a beautiful tapestry of strong characters, emotional depth and historical detail, all propelled by some great action and even underlaid with some social and gender criticism.

Th Elizabeth Hunter’s Elemental Mysteries / Elemental World series is some of the best UF / PNR I have read in years. I can’t believe I just discovered her recently; I haven’t been this excited since I stumbled upon my first Nalini Singh book while stranded at an airport. The world building is so original and she weaves such a beautiful tapestry of strong characters, emotional depth and historical detail, all propelled by some great action and even underlaid with some social and gender criticism.

The Scarlet Deep is chronologically the 6th story in the Elemental World universe and the 3rd full length novel of the series. It features Murphy, the vampire leader of Dublin and his mate, Anne. Both of them have appeared as supporting characters in previous stories, most notably in the prequel „A Very Proper Monster“ (Tom and Josie’s story) and „Building From Ashes“ (Carwyn and Brigid’s story). Although The Scarlet Deep would work as a standalone, to get the full enjoyment out of all the various characters that pop up and because there ia a overarching storyline, you should probably start with Gio and Beatrice’s story (A Hidden Fire).

A hundred years ago Murphy and Anne were lovers and mated. Buth Murphy was still young and rash and he did something Anne viewed as a deep betrayal, so she left him and moved to Galway where she set up a psychiatric practice treating human and vampire clients, making a new life for herself and trying to get over her mate. Murphy poured all his focus and energy into becoming the leader of the Dublin vampires, and though he’s had many meaningless flings he has never gotten over Anne. Even after 70 years their blood bond has hardly faded, so when Terry Ramsay proposes a meeting of vampire leaders to find out who is behind the distribution of the elixir, Murphy sees his chance and through clever political maneuvering he accomplishes that Anne is going to accompany him to London as the representative of her sister Mary, who holds Belfast. But with everything that is going on Murphy hardly has the time to court Anne the way he would like to. And once the pressure is mounting, Murphy once again asks Anne to make an impossible choice, but this time Anne will fight for their love instead of running…

I loved that Murphy and Anne had a history and that they got a second chance at love. But at the same time they both have grown as people during the time they were apart and they are not the same as they were when they separated in anger. They not only have to forgive each other, but also themselves in order to overcome their painful past and have a chance to move forward. I also love how unique each of Elizabeth Hunter’s couples are ; with many authors the different couples after a time start to blur into each other, not so with Hunter : every couple is very different, and their love stories take a very individual path, too. At the same time all the stories are deeply emotional in their own way with a hint of mystery. The mystery in this story concerns Anne’s and Mary’s sire, and the revelation of who it is came as quite a surprise. I also love Hunter’s heroes and heroines : the women are strong and independent and the men are intelligent, considerate, funny and mostly believe in the equality of the sexes, even though most of them were born in another age. At the same time they are also strong, honorable and mouth-wateringly hot.
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