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I read a book!

It was Lothaire and I didn’t think it was that good. The end.

HA HA HA!

Guise. As if. I’m gonna talk about this long and hard, because 1. nerding out is fun and 2. talking about my feelings is validating. To the book review!

I’ve had some issues with Kresley Cole and the Immortals After Dark series. I’ve come to realize that her best books are the ones that place the romance within the larger Accension (basically, the Apocalypse to end all apocalypses) framework. The play between romantic tension and the inherent tension of a world at the brink are so complimentary, that I can actually believe in fated lovers.

Unfortunately, Lothaire is not situated within the greater Accension storyline. It’s a peculiarly small and closed off story for Cole, who has previously had characters jump all over the globe on a million crazy adventures. This time around, it’s really just about this dude and his lady, with most of the action taking place inside Lothaire’s apartment.

Also, as it turns out, Lothaire, the villain to end all villains, is pretty fucking dumb.

The plot, via Amazon:

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.

One of the most interesting aspects of romance novels is that both the reader and the author are perfectly aware that there will be a Happily Ever After for these characters. You know and I know (because we read the blurb) that the Hero who so hates the Heroine in the beginning is gonna love the shit out of her by the end ( or vice versa).

But the thing is, around page 150, I was like, seriously, Lothaire? Because I figured out that your One True Luurve is Elizabeth, not the demon goddess bitch possessing her, and I’m not the “Lore’s most ruthless vampire.” And then I realized the book is 400 some pages long and Cole’s first hardcover publication,. and I was like, OH RIGHT.

$$$ > plot.

So anyway, the world’s most cunning and crazy villain is in fact such a snob, so set in his millenia-old-ass ways, that he in no way able to conceive of a world in which his Bride is measly human being. From Appalachia, no less. Which.. I mean? Really? That’s it? Not only am I scratching my head over this weak excuse for romantic tension, I’m also kind of doubting that Lothaire is half the cunning villain he is supposed to be. Cunning villains can be as snobby and as elitist as they want— as long as they are also adaptable and logical. Rejecting Elizabeth, well past the point of reason, is none of those things.

(Also, Kresley Cole totally traded her “ye ken, lassie” highlanders for backwoods hillbilly-speak cliches that were so embarrassing, I carried a watermelon.)

Elizabeth’s story, however, is much more interesting— for a little while— until she inexplicably just Forgives Everything In the Name of Love. I mean, here is a death row inmate, possessed by the incarnation of serial-killing evil, forced to bargain with half-mad vampire for her very damn soul. While falling in love with him, and also while he constantly belittles all of humanity, in general, and most especially her, in particular.

And then she just forgives him! While sitting around by herself, thinking about it. “Well, you know, I love him. So I’ll just forgive the horrible way he treated me and the time he tried to divest me of my soul and how he made me a vampire without my consent.. while sitting here.. by myself… abandoned by him.”

The end.