Published April 1, 2006
Publisher: Pocket Books
Format: audiobook, purchased
Genre: adult paranormal/fantasy romance
To Buy: Amazon * Barnes & Noble
Rating: 4 STARS
(From Goodreads) A mythic warrior who'll stop at nothing to possess her...
After enduring years of torture from the vampire horde, Lachlain MacRieve, leader of the Lykae Clan, is enraged to find the predestined mate he's waited millennia for is a vampire. Or partly one. This Emmaline is a small, ethereal half Valkyrie/half vampire, who somehow begins to soothe the fury burning within him.
A vampire captured by her wildest fantasy...
Sheltered Emmaline Troy finally sets out to uncover the truth about her deceased parents—until a powerful Lykae claims her as his mate and forces her back to his ancestral Scottish castle. There, her fear of the Lykae—and their notorious dark desires—ebbs as he begins a slow, wicked seduction to sate her own dark cravings.
An all-consuming desire...
Yet when an ancient evil from her past resurfaces, will their desire deepen into a love that can bring a proud warrior to his knees and turn a gentle beauty into the fighter she was born to be?
I know - I'm a little late to this party. There's 14 books in the Immortal After Dark series, plus a spin-off now, and I just now started it. Better late than never, eh?
Although a book precedes A Hunger Like No Other, it's really more like a prequel novella. Last time I checked, The Warlord Wants Forever (Immortals After Dark #1) was available for free on Kresley Cole's website. But, A Hunger Like No Other was the first full-length story set in this awesome world where we humans exist among all manner of creatures - vampires, werewolves, valkyries... it's a veritable melting pot of weird, and I loved it.
Emmaline is one in a million - a half valkyrie, half vampire. She's on a mission to find information about her parents when she is kidnapped by sexy Lycae, Lachlain. Lachlain has been imprisoned for over a hundred years, and he finds the strength to escape when he senses Emma - his true mate. He is devastated, though, to find out she's half vampire. Her strength and character break through his prejudices, though, but will it be in time to save her from a bigger threat?
I loved the dark passion in this book. Lachlain is such a tortured soul. He's spent so long all alone being tortured. He's half nuts when he finally connects with Emma, and then he's half blinded by that and half blinded by rage that she's the mortal enemy of his kind. Add to that the fact that the world is a much different place now than it was when he was imprisoned, and it's no wonder Lachlain is a bit surly.
Emma, although timid and meek at first glance, is really pretty brave. She stands up to Lachlain time and time again. She knows when to pick her battles, so she handles him pretty well. My problem with Emmaline was that she handled Lachlain a little TOO well. She not only pushes him away, but is pretty mean and hurtful to him for so very long. Admittedly, Lachlain deserved it in the beginning. He didn't exactly make their first meeting sweet and romantic. He chased her and tackled her in the mud, and then kidnapped her and forced her to drive him to his home in Scotland.
But, eventually, Lachlain wised up and realized how incredible she was and that her being a vampire wasn't the end of the world for him. Problem was, Emma still was having a hard time getting over his initial treatment of her. That irritated me, and it did get a little old after awhile.
There was a whole lot of other things going on besides the romancing of Emma and Lachlain. It's obvious the various species of supernatural beings don't get along with each other very well. They are all on the cusp of war, and the tensions spill over and create little skirmishes all over the place. We see several of these take place in the book.
We also see Lachlain's intense desire for revenge against his jailer which ends up having some pretty crazy ties to Emma. So, that story sort of comes full circle, which was interesting. A Hunger Like No Other was told in third person, so we shift frequently between Lachlain's and Emma's POV. Since it is in third person, we also get several other characters' POVs as well, and a nice set up for the next book in the series.
I listened to the audio version of this book. Male narrators haven't ever been my thing. It's harder for their voices to change enough to distinguish between the characters. Robert Petkoff who narrated A Hunger Like No Other was freaking brilliant. He was, by far, my favorite male narrator - hell, he was one of my favorite narrators ever, period. Lachlain is Scottish, and the Scottish accent that Petkoff delivers was sexy and perfect. I look forward to the next book in this series, partly just so I can hear his voice again. And, partly because I really enjoyed this complex supernatural world that Kresley Cole created and can't wait to go back again soon.
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