Lord of the Vampires by Gena Showalter

Lord of the Vampires by Gena Showalter
My rating: ★★★

ETA: after finishing all the books in the series, I am downgrading my review to three stars. It factors in how much I like each book, and how many flaws I felt each book had when taking into consideration the whole quartet.



Now I understand why so many people love Gena Showalter. The woman is a master storyteller. The first book I read by her totally underwhelmed. This is my second book and I am totally overwhelmed.

I love, love, love the mythology Ms Showalter and the other three ladies have created for this series.

This is the first book in the series, and Ms. Showalter chose to model her story after Alice in Wonderland (I had to look that up to remember :O), and I guess I kinda see the resemblance.

I liked the book quite a bit. I was completely transported into the world and the experience of the characters. I felt rage when Nicolai was enraged, I felt sad when Jane was sad, I felt angry when Nicolai was angry. The tension/foreshadowing was out of this world.

After a tragedy that befalls his family, Nicolai, crown prince of a kingdom that runs parallel to our world, is trapped in a time warp, literally, with his memory wiped clean. He's been made a sex slave in the time warp kingdom and lives his days out planning his revenge. He also knows there is something urgent to do re taking back a kingdom, but with his memory gone, he has no idea what he is supposed to do. With his magic he summons Jane, a woman with her own scars, to free him. This being a PNR, of course they fall in love along the way (well these two fell in love rather early).

The characters were fantastic. Nicolai was one scary dude- he reminds me vaguely of Jericho Z Barrons and Nalini Singh's Raphael - utterly ruthless, completely without ruth (lol!). I felt every bit of his frustration when he'd start to remember something about his past only for the memory to fade when he was on the cusp of remembering, argh! The little snippets of memory he did have about his family all made me go "awwww."

I also totally loved that Nicolai was a vampire, but not in the undead sense of it. I don't like the undead. So this was one 'vampire' novel I enjoyed.

Jane was a kick-ass heroine, smart, witty, mature, and not at all TSTL. Girl was take-charge, going straight for what she wanted: Nicolai. No misunderstandings, no nothing. Just two adults who were as straight as possible with each other (well, most of the time) from the get go.

I loved reading this book. I see what all the fuss about Ms. Showalter is about now.
I am excited for this series and I am excited to read more of Gena Showalter's work.

I highly recommend this book
*I received this ebook/eARC from Netgalley free of charge; it had no influence on my review/rating*


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