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Colleen is currently recovering from an injury, so she’s chosen one of her favorite classic columns to share with you this month. So, in case you missed it, here’s her review of Kresley Cole’s A Hunger Like No Other.
Facebook is, in my opinion, both a blessing and a curse. It’s a curse when I’m trying to, for example, write a review in time to make deadline but I can’t seem to stop playing “Bricks Breaking.” However, it’s a blessing in that all I need to do is bemoan in my status how I’m “burned out” with romance novels, that every one I read seems to be either too tame, too lame, or poorly written—and I’ll get several suggestions from friends for new books to read. That’s what happened to me a little while ago, and so I must throw a “shout out” to my friend Jillian for turning me on (no pun intended) to a great book and a new romance series for me to devour (pun definitely intended—you’ll see why).
In A Hunger Like No Other by Kresley Cole, we meet Emmaline Troy. Emmaline (or Emma) is a supernatural hybrid: part vampire and part Valkyrie. At the ripe old age of 70 (though she doesn’t look at day over 21) she is trying to find out who she is. She’s never met her father, and her mother (the famous Helen of Troy who was, apparently, a Valkryie, which would explain her great beauty) passed away years ago.
In Cole’s universe, vampires are not the “vegetarians” of Twilight nor do they have souls a la Angel. They are vicious, evil killers while Emma is decidedly “good,” and that’s why Emma feels as if she doesn’t belong anywhere. She also feels as if she doesn’t belong with her Valkryie sisters, with their hunger for warcraft. She desperately wants to belong, and is in Paris hoping to find who she is and where—or to whom—she belongs.
Lachlain MacRieve is the king of the Lycae, or werewolves. He has been imprisoned in the catacombs under Paris for centuries—imprisoned by Demestriu, king of the Vampires and by far the baddest of the bunch. Lachlain endures the centuries of torture until one day he hears her voice—his mate, the one he’d waited several lifetimes to find.
Summoning a truly preternatural strength, Lachlain escapes and pursues his mate, who turns out to be—you guessed it—Emma. Together they embark on a journey to discover why they were thrown together (seeing as how vampires and werewolves have always been mortal enemies, neither of them take the news that they are fated to be together easily) and how they could ever build a life together. On top of that, Emma searches for her father and her destiny while Lachlain struggles to keep his clan from being destroyed in the coming War (every few hundred years, war breaks out among the paranormal community as a way of controlling the population. The werewolves never fare particularly well.).
There were so many ways this book could have gone wrong had it been written by a less-talented author. The emotions and backgrounds involved with each character are complicated but never forced, always well-articulated. I could see many parallels to “real world” concepts of tolerance and personal identity, but it never seems heavy handed or trite. The dialogue is, for the most part, well written (with the exception of the Lycae’s atrocious Scottish accents). Emma is, for her age, thoroughly modern and makes lots of references to pop culture (she actually majored in “pop culture studies” while in college) but said references never go too far or strain her credibility.
And, of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the sex scenes. Holy Cow! Cole constructed some of the hottest, most visceral love scenes I’ve ever read. Lachlain is simply seething with raw sexuality. He wants Emma so much he practically devours her—and makes the reader hunger as well.
A Hunger Like No Other is truly an excellent romance novel. It has it all—action, romance, sex—and the paranormal aspects actually work really well. I would most definitely read it again, and in fact have already ordered the second in the series. I can’t wait to, uh, sink my teeth into it!
