From the Bookshelf of SOS: Serious Overload of Series…

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

Kresley Cole

Start date: February 1, 2014

Finish date: February 28, 2014

Discussion: Challenges: What's the Rush

Why we're reading this: Part of our group series (re)read: Immortals After Dark …more
[close] Part of our group series (re)read: Immortals After Dark

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 44 topics — 4,327 comments total

Challenges: What's the Rush

* 2025 Series Read: K.N. Banet's "Jacky Leon"
By Steph , Serious series addict · 103 posts · 33 views

last updated 17 hours, 9 min ago

This topic has been closed to new comments.

* YEAR-LONG CHALLENGES
By Steph , Serious series addict · 1 post · 389 views

last updated Aug 17, 2010 11:14PM

showing 10 of 113 topics view all »

What Members Thought

Apr 14, 2011 Chelsea rated it liked it

Shelves: vampires, uf-pnr, weres, smexy

This review was originally published at Vampire Book Club.

Emma is half-vampire, half Valkyrie. Raised by the powerful warrior women, she was taught to hate vampires and only drink blood out of a glass. At 70, she’s very young for a vampire, and finally decides to search out her father. Her mother and father had lived in Paris, and so she starts there.

Lachlain has been imprisioned for 150 years. The vicious vampires captured him and have tortured him in the catacombs below Paris. Fire burns him a This review was originally published at Vampire Book Club.

Emma is half-vampire, half Valkyrie. Raised by the powerful warrior women, she was taught to hate vampires and only drink blood out of a glass. At 70, she’s very young for a vampire, and finally decides to search out her father. Her mother and father had lived in Paris, and so she starts there.

Lachlain has been imprisioned for 150 years. The vicious vampires captured him and have tortured him in the catacombs below Paris. Fire burns him alive, only for him to regenerate. Though he’d attempted before, escape appeared impossible. That was until he scented his mate — the one woman he is meant to live for, who could save him — walking the streets above. After searching for her for hundreds of years, he manages to break free to seek her out.

Unfortunately, the woman he finds is a vampire. Her people tortured him and drove him mad, but as she’s the one who is supposed to calm his beast, he needs her near. So, being of old tradition, the werewolf kidnaps Emma and coerces her into returning to his ancestral home in Scotland. Early on in the book Lachlain is purposefully cruel, and uses Emma’s fear to get her to agree to sexual situations. He does not rape her, but she’s scared he will, and the exchange of promised freedom/phone calls for indulging him make you want to break the guy’s jaw.

He’s not the only one looking for Emma, though. Her Valkyrie aunts want her back and demons are attacking all the strongholds. Over time Lachlain comes to accept that Emma is his true mate and wants nothing more than to make her happy, but his early action terrified her. As he gets his beast under control, he vows not to touch her without her permission again. He promises to protect her — and he does. But he also fears the damage may already be done and worries she may never love him back.

I loved the world Kresley Cole created in A Hunger Like No Other. The interplay between vampires and werewolves is often seen, but the added element of the Valkyries was brilliant. The structure of the supernatural society — with periodic Ascensions with war — is intriguing and reason enough to continue reading the series. Additionally, Emma makes some nice, albeit rapid growth and gets in touch with both her warrior and vampire sides.

The problem here, for me, is how conflicted I felt about wanting a happily ever after here. Cole makes you want Emma and Lachlain together. You like them both, understand what motivates their actions. But, you see, even knowing the reasoning behind Lachlain’s early behavior, the idea of wanting a HEA between a kidnapping and sexual assault victim and her attacker makes me a little queasy. (And, to be honest, I want to know why no one warned me about that.) We get insight into why Lachlain behaved the way he did, and Emma lets it go, but it still left a bad taste in my mouth.

That said, I’m game to read more Immortals After Dark books. Provided the next book doesn’t go the “rape her into loving him” vibe, I think I could really enjoy the series. The characters are intriguing, the world inviting and the romantic interplay steamy.

Sexual content: Graphic sexual scenes, some of which fall under “dubious consent” ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Mar 19, 2011 Ruby Jo rated it really liked it

Shelves: weres, vampires, paranormal

The second book in the Immortals After Dark series introduces the Lykae Clan with it's very sexy pack leader, Lachlain MacRieve. If you think Kresley Cole's vampires are sexy, wait till you meet the werewolves. Imagine Gerard Butler multiplied by hundreds. The Scottish accent, the strength, the alpha male vibe, all of it made me fell in love with Ms. Cole's werewolves.

Lachlain is the king of the Lykae Clan, so he's the ultimate bad boy, alpha male in town. After 150 years of imprisonment at the The second book in the Immortals After Dark series introduces the Lykae Clan with it's very sexy pack leader, Lachlain MacRieve. If you think Kresley Cole's vampires are sexy, wait till you meet the werewolves. Imagine Gerard Butler multiplied by hundreds. The Scottish accent, the strength, the alpha male vibe, all of it made me fell in love with Ms. Cole's werewolves.

Lachlain is the king of the Lykae Clan, so he's the ultimate bad boy, alpha male in town. After 150 years of imprisonment at the hands of the vampires, he senses his mate somewhere in Paris and escapes his bonds, even if that means severing his leg (I was happy to realize at this point, that werewolves regenerate ). Now for me that was more than just plain sexy. To endanger his life for a mate he hadn't yet met means that he would do anything for her, no matter what. And even after he realizes she's a vampire, he doesn't hurt her just to get rid of her, he protects Emma, trying to see the good in her. It also made me sad, because it meant that he truly was alone before he sensed her, even before he was captured by the Horde vampires.

What I found really maddening were Emma's insecurities. Would her aunts like Lachlain, would they have a problem with him being a werewolf, would they try to hurt him... Not once does she think "Hey, I like him, I'll take him as he is, if they don't like it, so be it!" The little confusion I was having ended when, at a more careful reading, I realized that the events in this book happen at the same time as The Warlord Wants Forever, at which point I understood that Lachlain was, in Emma's eyes, the first "enemy" to mate with a Valkirie. Still, Emma's insecurities bugged me a lot. I understood them, but I still wanted to shake her up a little bit.

This book, although not my favorite in the series, made me hungry for more IAD stories. The main reason I had this moment of "I'm going to read this series as fast as I can" thinking was because of Lothaire. This book introduces "the Enemy of the old", the mysterious bad vampire Lothaire.

But back to the book in question. I liked the fact that Emma finally got past her insecurities and her fears. I wish she would've done it sooner, but better late than never. I loved Lachlain and his entire pack. They all had that "larger than life" air. I hope we'll get more werewolf heroes in the future from Ms. Cole. ...more

Like · see review

Sep 06, 2010 Dawn rated it liked it

Liked it...did not love it. May read the second book in the series to get a good feel for the rest of the books.

Like · see review

Aug 30, 2010 Joyce rated it liked it

Shelves: drm-free-epubs, paranormal-romance, witches, vampires, louisianna, demons, shape-shifter, france, sexy, scotland

I did not like the beginning of this book. (view spoiler) But after I got past my original reservations of the first few chapters it started to intrigue me. By the end I was enjoying it and will say that I will probably read more of the series. ...more

Like · see review

Aug 30, 2010 Daffodil rated it liked it

Shelves: paranormal-romance, vampires, shifters, color-blue

Interesting world and characters, but I found it hard to get emotionally invested in it. I am willing to continue on to the next book in the series and see how things develop.

Like · see review