Lothaire by Kresley Cole

Title: Lothaire
Author: Kresley Cole
Series: Immortals After Dark, #12
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Publisher: Gallery Books (Imprint of Simon & Schuster)
Date Published: January 10th, 2012
Edition: Hardcover
Rating:

ALL FEAR THE ENEMY OF OLD
Driven by his insatiable need for revenge, Lothaire, the Lore’s most ruthless vampire, plots to seize the Horde’s crown. But bloodlust and torture have left him on the brink of madness—until he finds Elizabeth Peirce, the key to his victory. He captures the unique young mortal, intending to offer up her very soul in exchange for power, yet Elizabeth soothes his tormented mind and awakens within him emotions Lothaire believed he could no longer experience.

A DEADLY FORCE DWELLS WITHIN HER
Growing up in desperate poverty, Ellie Peirce yearned for a better life, never imagining she’d be convicted of murder—or that an evil immortal would abduct her from death row. But Lothaire is no savior, as he himself plans to sacrifice Ellie in one month’s time. And yet the vampire seems to ache for her touch, showering her with wealth and sexual pleasure. In a bid to save her soul, Ellie surrenders her body to the wicked vampire, while vowing to protect her heart.

CENTURIES OF COLD INDIFFERENCE SHATTERED
Elizabeth tempts Lothaire beyond reason, as only his fated mate could. As the month draws to a close, he must choose between a millennia-old blood vendetta and his irresistible prisoner. Will Lothaire succumb to the miseries of his past . . . or risk everything for a future with her?

My Review:

Lothaire, for me, was hard to love at first. I’ll totally admit that. Despite how impossible it is for Ms. Cole to disappoint me, Lothaire himself was a hard man to love. His shell is extremely hard and goes quite deep, so Ellie had her work cut out for her when it came to breaking it down. Lothaire was definitely the most unique male protagonist she’s written about though. Sure he’s tough and brooding. But he actually is still pretty evil. Even when you breech the surface, he is still mostly an ass. Unlike previous heroes who melt for their lady quite quickly, Lothaire took some warming up to. So this was probably the hardest thing about the book and the main reason I struggled between four and five stars.

But when it comes down to it, I couldn’t put this book down. It was just as gripping as all her other books and the story remained unique in it’s own right. Ellie was feisty yet loveable, the sexual tension was as to be expected from Cole, and we even got more actual sex in this one than in the previous books. Actually, for that reason, it sort of took me back to The Warlord Wants Forever. Although we’re bound to get near-painful sexual tension between the H/h in any IAD novel, the amount of actual sex in this one was more in line with the very first book in the series than all the others (not a bad thing though at all).

There were some things I didn’t like though (other than the fact that it took awhile to warm up to Lothaire). I love how Kresley meshes and intertwines her storylines, and while we got to see a little bit of that in this one, it wasn’t nearly as much as in the past. I felt like the story was a bit more disconnected and scrambled than I have come to expect from this series. Things just seemed to happen in the nick of time as opposed to happening for a reason. On top of that, the humor was toned down a lot. While there was some, my favorite thing about these books was the humor and I hardly laughed out loud with this one. Also…Nix. While I still love my Nixie-poo, most of her appearances were very, well un-Nix-like. She seemed way more lucid and less crazy-fun than usual. Maybe this is for a reason that we’ll find out in the next book, but even though she definitely still is out of her mind, she wasn’t as amusing!

Overall, this was a great book. If it weren’t for the fact that I’ve come to expect quite a lot from these books, then I would have easily given this book five stars. But, since I know what Ms. Cole is capable of and for the reasons I talked about, I have to give it four stars instead of five. It was very good, but I didn’t love it nearly as much as all the previous books unfortunately.

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