A review by kreadsromance1
A Hunger Like No Other by Kresley Cole

3.0

Summary: Lykae seeks revenge on the vampires that tortured him. Then he discovers his true mate is half vampire and can't decide whether to punish her for what her people did or love and protect her. She is bewildered by his treatment of her and doesn't appreciate being held captive and having her life decided for her. Expect plenty of foreplay, relatively little sex, a decent amount of violence and some description of torture.

Spoiler

Main pairing: Emmaline (Emma)/Lachlain
Favourite character: Harmann
Villain(s) Demestriu/Ivo

Character rating: 5/10
Plot rating: 6/10
Setting rating: 9/10
Overall rating:6/10

Pros: I love the world building in this series. The variety of species, the way they interact, how they are affected by the natural (and human) worlds. Thoroughly thought out and imaginative, I can understand why this is such a successful series.

There is no denying that the chemistry between our two main characters is sizzling! The build up was long and sexy.

Cons: This book is a hatemance for 70% of its length. Now the blurb tells you that this isn't going to be all sunshine and roses and I do like a good hatemance. But wow, there is a limit to how much time I can stand our main couple going back and forth between "I hate you" and "I need you". To make it worse, when that tension is finally resolved (in a matter of moments), the plot suddenly veers away from the happy couple. We get a small time jump and then the action plot takes over. I have not invested in reading 70% of a book with reasonably frustrating interactions between these two in order to have the sweet, fluffy, happy moments skipped over. No Ma'am. We barely even get a sex scene where they don't dislike each other. This seriously impacted my enjoyment.

The book also felt... almost disjointed. I usually read novels in one sitting, but had to break this one down into three parts in order to keep my attention and interest on the novel. I don't understand entirely why that is - maybe because the book naturally breaks itself down into road trip, castle, and action. Maybe some sections just got a little repetitive. Maybe I'm just extra tired. But I wasn't completely strapped in for the ride.

Let's talk about Emma's Valkyrie relatives. They were definitely aiming for quirky and bad ass, but missed that mark entirely in favour of annoying, unreasonable and cruel. A lot of the emotional turmoil in the book (at least the bits that were downright stupid and contrived) were down to them and it really did not endear them to me.

Then let's talk about the slightly dodgy area of consent around how the hero tries to get the heroine to sleep with him. His methods were invariably to push Emma into a state of altered consciousness - through blood lust and once through alcohol - in order to get her to set aside her "no fucking Lachlain" boundary and sleep with him. Eek.

Final opinion: Another book I ended up downgrading after writing out this review. I did enjoy this one and I particularly enjoyed the primal romance between Lachlain and Emma; but ultimately there were more issues than I was able to overlook.