Review: Pleasure of a Dark Prince by Kresley Cole

#1 New York Times bestselling author Kresley Cole enraptures again with this seductive tale of a fierce werewolf prince who will stop at nothing to protect the lovely archer he covets from afar.

A DANGEROUS BEAUTY...

Lucia the Huntress: as mysterious as she is exquisite, she harbors secrets that threaten to destroy her — and those she loves.

AN UNCONTROLLABLE NEED...

Garreth MacRieve, Prince of the Lykae: the brutal Highland warrior who burns to finally claim this maddeningly sensual creature as his own.

THAT LEAD TO A PLEASURE SO WICKED....

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.

Ok, so let me just say that anyone who knows me from Twitter knows that I love Kresley Cole with mad, passionate, stalker like love and her Immortals After Dark series is crackalicious goodness. Pleasure of a Dark Prince is the 7th full length addition to the series, but if you're anal (like me) then it's actually the 9th installment when you count the two short story/novellas that were released in anthologies.

So, we first met Lucia and Garreth in A Hunger Like No Other, the story of Garreth's brother Lachlain, king of the Lykae for those keeping score, and Lucia's neice, Emma. Although, I do believe we got a glimpse of Lucia in The Warlord Wants Forever the short story in the antho Playing Easy to Get which was Wroth and Myst's story.

The thing with this series is the timeline. It's.....screwy. Yes, I love that several of the books are happening at the same time, and so we get to see some events from multiple points of view, but it gets a bit jumbled when it then jumps forward or backward in time and you start losing a point of reference for what the hell is going on in the Lore, the preternatural world in the IAD series. Honestly, I don't completely get why Ms. Cole put out some other couples' books before this one. You meet characters in a book and it would seem natural that their story would come next since they're so closely related to the characters or events of the previous story, but instead we get to wait several books to finally then jump back in the timeline and pick up the thread of that couple's story. It's starting to give me a headache.

Now, don't get me wrong, this story has all the ingredients of a hot and entertaining story and I've been waiting for it for like 8 books, but it felt a little slow to get started. Why? Because the first 16 chapters are going back in the timeline to when the first story (or three) were taking place to pick up Lucia and Garreth's first meeting. I didn't mind this at first because I really wanted to see what was hinted at in A Hunger Like No Other of their courtship to be fleshed out and I wanted to see some of the events happening to the other couples through the eyes of Lucia and Garreth. Problem was that as good as Ms. Cole is at making sure that events are pretty much the same she still missed a few things. Wroth and Myst were completely AWOL and Emma and Lachlain seemed different to me. Especially the couple times that we saw them later in the book. So, then we jump ahead a year and by now I'm lost because within that year a lot has happened in the Lore and now I'm confused as to what is going on with whom. This is where the real fun begins.

I love that Lucia beat the crap out of Garreth for a frickin year and he just kept coming like a freight train. If you don't like your heroes a bit psycho with the possessiveness and determination to win their ladies then I warn you you won't like this series, but if you're like me and love you some hot sexy alpha men that love their women to the point of madness and kick ass women that are just as dangerous and so not easy to win, then you will love this series.

Honestly, for all my issues with this book as far as timeline and even pacing (the time on the boat was kinda boring to me) the interaction between Garreth and Lucia and even the lead couple and other characters of the Lore was great. The passion was there, the sex was hot and there was plenty of action and killing of things (which, as you know, I'm also a fan of). Regin seemed even more immature and a pain in this one than in the previous books, but I'm still looking forward to her story and the dude that'll tame that wildcat. I loved Garreth's interactions with his brother and how Lachlain and Bowen had Garreth's back. One of my fave scenes was when Lachlain tells Garreth that his mate, Emma, pointed to a little human boy and said she wanted one. Well, Emma just meant she wanted kids, but Lachlain and Garreth both start trying to plot how they're going to procure a little mortal child for her. I laughed so hard at that. That just so illustrates the fundamental way these guys think. Their women say the want something and the guys all band together to make it so. I so want one of these guys for my very own.

Overall the book was good. There was hot lovin and interesting characters and danger and apocalyptic happenings and Nix was her usual awesome self. I loved finally finding out more about these two characters and the ending was sweet and totally sets the stage for the next wave of drama that's hitting the Lore. This series just keeps picking up pace as far as the action going down in the Lore and we see all the players coming together for some sort of final confrontation. I can't wait to jump into the next one and see what crazy hijinks will happen next.

My final grade for this one is a B+. It was very enjoyable but it wasn't my favorite installment in the series.

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Another review of Pleasure of a Dark Prince by KB