CBR2 Book 29: "Pleasure of a Dark Prince" by Kresley Cole

Publisher: Pocket
Page count: 448 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Date begun: February 16th, 2010
Date finished: February 18th, 2010

Kresley Cole's Immortals After Dark series is one of my true guilty pleasures. The books are pure fluff, with absolutely no literary substance whatsoever, but I greatly enjoy them, they're a supernatural soap opera. The more books one reads, the more characters one is introduced to, and it is really only a matter of time before the central characters get their own book and romance.

Kresley Cole's books feature a number of supernatural races. There are the valkyries - who are born when warrior women near death are blessed by Odin and Freya and saved by them (I never quite figured out how this made them pregnant). So each valkyrie sort of has three parents. They are extremely fierce warrior women, attracted by riches and shiny things, and when they get angry or excited, lightning strikes. There are also various demon races, good and bad vampires and werewolves. Pretty much all the races in Cole's world have one fated mate. They know instantly when they meet said mate, and will do anything to get said person, even if all sorts of complications ensue.

In Pleasure of a Dark Prince, the Scottish werewolf Garreth MacRieve finds out that his fated mate is one of the valkyries, Lucia the Huntress. Lucia is a legendary archer and was granted her awesome archery powers by wowing to serve the goddess Skathi, and staying chaste forever (due to a really unfortunate first time when she was 16, this did not seem like a difficult promise). She hardly ever misses a target, but if she does, she experiences great pain. Garreth is overjoyed when he finds his mate, but Lucia is not happy. If she gives in and has sex with Garreth, she will lose her archery powers - and these are essential to save her from a really unpleasant fate (going back to that nasty event when she was 16). She needs to find an arrow that can kill a God, and get rid of the source of all her nightmares.

After chasing her for a year, Garreth finally catches up with Lucia on a riverboat going down the Amazon river. They are stuck together, and clearly absolutely mad about each other. Having learned from his brother and cousin, Garreth is determined not to force Lucia into the mate bonding, and Lucia keeps trying to hold him off, as her chastity is necessary if she wants to keep her powers.

Having found the other two books of Cole's with werewolf heroes a bit less enjoyable (partly because of the truly awful faux Scots brogue she insists of having them speak with) than some of the other installments, I was not sure what to expect from the seventh entry in her series. The book also confused me to begin with, as timeline-wise it starts before the events of the first book. The events that happen "one year later" are after the events that have already taken place, however. Both Garreth and Lucia are likable characters, who actually communicate fairly satisfyingly once they are trapped on a boat together. Yes, many of their problems could be solved if Lucia would just come clean with Garreth, but when he does find out most of her dark secrets, he deal much better with the truth than many other romance heroes would. A very enjoyable read.