A review by angie_stl
Sweet Ruin by Kresley Cole
4.0
4 1/2 Stars
I received a copy of this book from netgalley for an honest review.
I have been following the Immortals After Dark series for a while now, so I was very excited to get this book. With not knowing who the main characters were from the blurb, I expected to be somewhat lost through part of it, at least until some familiar characters started showing up. That wasn't really the case, but to begin with it did seem like it was a stand alone or something outside the normal timeline of IAD. To help with that, I did know that this was planned to be the start of a whole new arc of the series.
The book starts when Josephine, or Jo, was 11 years old, taking care of her 2 1/2 year old brother. She has no memories from before she was 8 and she was found walking around with a newborn baby wrapped in her cloak with her, speaking gibberish. Every time she and her little brother, Thaddeus, were put in foster care, Jo would break them both out and live on the streets.
Rune Darklight also had a terrible childhood, working as a slave even though he was the king's son. Born from the abuse of an underage slave by the king, Rune was put in the fields with his mother. She was taken away when he was quite young, but even at seven thousand years old, he still has memories of her. At 15, his father died and his widow became the ruling monarch of their world. She decided to use Rune as an assassin against her political enemies, since all of his bodily fluids were poisonous. He did that until there was no one left to kill, and she decided to sell him to a brothel, telling him that just one complaint from a customer would end in his death, he was to "pleasure or perish". His stepmother came back into his life centuries later to take him as a prisoner and torture him for even more centuries. That's when The Møriør came into his life, and he joined their ranks. They are also known as The Bringers of Doom. There are 12 total from 12 different worlds, all of them primordials.
Jo knows very little about herself, other than she's 25 and she's wicked strong. She can dematerialize, making items invisible with her. She's a vampire and gets her blood by stealing from a blood bank. And she's very lonely, since leaving Thad with his adoptive parents 14 years before. She hopes this freak she meets out on the streets of New Orleans will have some answers to what she is, and she decides to meet him later that night to learn more. She first encountered him when she spied on him having an orgy with four nymphs, though she didn't know that's what they were at the time. When she and Rune meet later, she ends up biting him and drinking his blood "from the flesh". He expected her to die instantly, since his blood is highly poisonous, but she just keeps on drinking like it's the best thing she's ever tasted. Obviously his poison doesn't hurt her. From there, they start a haphazard partnership based on her desire for his blood and his desire to be bitten. Though quite dicey in spots, their relationship begins from these interactions.
There are tons of mentions of some of our favorite characters, but few make a full appearance, perhaps only Nïx and Lothaire, Enemy of Old. From the PR that was thrown out on Ms Cole's own website, I thought Nïx would have had a bigger role, but she really was only in a few scenes. I'll more than likely read every book published for this series, but I'm really anxious to get to Nïx's book!
I would absolutely recommend this book to any fan of the IAD series. If you're not already a fan, I think the missing pieces might make it too difficult to follow. There are mentions of many things that have happened in the past, and so much about Nïx, that could leave a person confused and wondering why so many people like these books. It's really not a stand alone, at least in my opinion. Start at the beginning, where you meet Nïx in the first or second book, and learn about her and the other creatures of the Lore.
I received a copy of this book from netgalley for an honest review.
I have been following the Immortals After Dark series for a while now, so I was very excited to get this book. With not knowing who the main characters were from the blurb, I expected to be somewhat lost through part of it, at least until some familiar characters started showing up. That wasn't really the case, but to begin with it did seem like it was a stand alone or something outside the normal timeline of IAD. To help with that, I did know that this was planned to be the start of a whole new arc of the series.
The book starts when Josephine, or Jo, was 11 years old, taking care of her 2 1/2 year old brother. She has no memories from before she was 8 and she was found walking around with a newborn baby wrapped in her cloak with her, speaking gibberish. Every time she and her little brother, Thaddeus, were put in foster care, Jo would break them both out and live on the streets.
Rune Darklight also had a terrible childhood, working as a slave even though he was the king's son. Born from the abuse of an underage slave by the king, Rune was put in the fields with his mother. She was taken away when he was quite young, but even at seven thousand years old, he still has memories of her. At 15, his father died and his widow became the ruling monarch of their world. She decided to use Rune as an assassin against her political enemies, since all of his bodily fluids were poisonous. He did that until there was no one left to kill, and she decided to sell him to a brothel, telling him that just one complaint from a customer would end in his death, he was to "pleasure or perish". His stepmother came back into his life centuries later to take him as a prisoner and torture him for even more centuries. That's when The Møriør came into his life, and he joined their ranks. They are also known as The Bringers of Doom. There are 12 total from 12 different worlds, all of them primordials.
Jo knows very little about herself, other than she's 25 and she's wicked strong. She can dematerialize, making items invisible with her. She's a vampire and gets her blood by stealing from a blood bank. And she's very lonely, since leaving Thad with his adoptive parents 14 years before. She hopes this freak she meets out on the streets of New Orleans will have some answers to what she is, and she decides to meet him later that night to learn more. She first encountered him when she spied on him having an orgy with four nymphs, though she didn't know that's what they were at the time. When she and Rune meet later, she ends up biting him and drinking his blood "from the flesh". He expected her to die instantly, since his blood is highly poisonous, but she just keeps on drinking like it's the best thing she's ever tasted. Obviously his poison doesn't hurt her. From there, they start a haphazard partnership based on her desire for his blood and his desire to be bitten. Though quite dicey in spots, their relationship begins from these interactions.
There are tons of mentions of some of our favorite characters, but few make a full appearance, perhaps only Nïx and Lothaire, Enemy of Old. From the PR that was thrown out on Ms Cole's own website, I thought Nïx would have had a bigger role, but she really was only in a few scenes. I'll more than likely read every book published for this series, but I'm really anxious to get to Nïx's book!
I would absolutely recommend this book to any fan of the IAD series. If you're not already a fan, I think the missing pieces might make it too difficult to follow. There are mentions of many things that have happened in the past, and so much about Nïx, that could leave a person confused and wondering why so many people like these books. It's really not a stand alone, at least in my opinion. Start at the beginning, where you meet Nïx in the first or second book, and learn about her and the other creatures of the Lore.