This was an odd little experiment, which I undertook because I'm so on the hook for Nalini Singh's Psy-Changeling novels, but then I haven't been down for much else she's written. I'm not sure what the official name for this series is -- Lords of [Something] would be my guess -- but it's four different paranormal romance novels with an overarching plot written by four different writers. I find this sort of thing fascinating -- when novel writers collaborate like television or comic writers.

 

The last series like this I read was the Crimson City novels. Most of them are by someone called Liz Maverick (which is surely not a pen name at all), but the second is by Marjorie M Liu. who, before she racked up all the awards for Monstress, wrote this fucking brilliantly weird PNR series called Dirk & Steele. I mean, she really moved the markers for what you can pull off in the sometimes boring vampire/werewolf snorefest you can find in the genre. Liu took the kind of premise that made me exclaim, wait, what?? like a hundred times when I was reading the first novel, Crimson City, and in her story, grounds it so completely in believable interpersonal concerns that my brain stopped screaming every 15 minutes about how nothing about the world made any sense. That's some godamn writing right there. 

 

Singh's outing in the Lords of [Something] maybe wasn't at this level, but I actually made it all the way through to the end of the novel, which is something I cannot say about the other three books in the series. Some of this is just the silliness of the premise, because all of the books are riffs on various fairy tales. There's one based on Goldilocks and the Three Bears, for example, where our fair haired maiden finds a rock hard cock which was just right, and I just couldn't stop my brain from squealing immaturely, and then breaking into laughter.  

 

Lord of the Abyss is very loosely based on Beauty and the Beast, and it works in the places that Singh tends to excel, and otherwise is kind of a mess. She does an excellent job writing characters out of trauma and abuse. She doesn't go for the magic vagina, the ladybits that can cure all, but constructs believable psychologies warped by neglect, and then slowly, carefully, draws them out. But the world, and the magic, is slapdash, so the parts of the plot that intersect with that are shaky at best. 

 

So, fun to see a writer I tend to enjoy, at least in one limited context, pull off something in a shared world. Didn't captivate me like Psy-Changeling, but it was a perfectly cromulent way to pass the time. 

 

ETA: Ok, I actually looked, and the series is called Royal House of Shadows, which seems kind of stuffy and conceited, but what do I know. 

 

 

ok. Micah is defiantly my favorite of the men. rawr. what an alpha. I adored how he and Lilly bantered n teased n played. a fabulous conclusion to the series

NEED NEED NEED TO READ.NETGALLEY, damn you! Y U NO LIKE ME?! *starts crying**looks at authors name again**cries even more**drags herself to bed**continues to cry. silently*

Peri masalı vari bir son. Sonsuza kadar mutlu yaşadılar!

Lord of the Abyss: Prince Micah/Lord of the Abyss and Liliana

Summary:

Liliana is the daughter of the Blood Sorcerer who massacred all that were at Elden including Micah’s parents; he also cursed Micah as his mother cast him to a far off realm where he would be safe. In a vision Liliana saw that at midnight the night Micah’s siblings come back to recapture the kingdom Micah never came, without his presence the siblings fail and the Blood Sorcerer captures them for a fate worse than death. Liliana can’t let that happen, as one of her father favorite victims she knows how cruel he can be and Micah is her only chance at defeating her father, so she set off to find him. Where Micah is, even her father won’t go. As Lord of the Abyss, Micah is what all evil fears, if the Lord of the Abyss comes for you your evil soul will burn in the Abyss for eternity. Micah has absolutely no recollection of anything before becoming the Lord of the Abyss, to him this is all he has ever been. When a frail ugly woman drops into the Black Castle he has no idea what to do with her, so he throws her in the dungeon until he can figure out what to do with the strange female that shows him no fear, a first for him. In their next meeting Micah is intrigued and Lilana knows she can’t be sent to the dungeon, from there she can’t get Micah to remember and she needs him to remember so she offers to become his cook. Knowing she doesn’t have much time so she starts doing all she can to make him remember knowing the whole time as soon as he finds out who she really is he will hate her. More and more Micah finds himself enjoying the strange Liliana’s company her stories are unusual and her lack of fear is intoxicating. Micah finds himself wanting her and what the Lord of the Abyss wants the Lord of the Abyss gets. Lilana cannot believe that Micah wants her, no man has ever wanted her, she knows she isn’t pretty and has had that thrown in her face her entire life, and Micah keeps perusing her as if he doesn’t care that she is ugly. As days pass Lilianna knows her time is running out her father has started sending his minions after her and Micah is remembering more and more, but her betrayal is hanging over both of their heads…

Review:

Oh how I love Nalini Singh, she does it again with this story. She is one of the few authors that can really take a shortened version of a full length book and really still do the characters justice. This was my favorite story of the series, I freak’n love Micah. He is my favorite with all of his arrogant “Of Course… I’m the Lord of the Abyss”… comments, his unabashed desire, his loneliness, good heart and uncorrupted soul, how could you not fall for him? I know I succumbed to the Lord of the Abyss. I have seen in forums and blogs readers complain that the hero and the heroine are always drop dead gorgeous and they want an unattractive character, well ladies, here it is and Nalini did it very well. I know I didn’t care that Liliana wasn’t the most attractive character, sure I knew this was a “Beauty and the Beast” make over, but during the entire story it didn’t matter that I am used to reading about almost perfect leading ladies and this one wasn’t . If she had never transformed I wouldn’t have cared, because I liked Lilana so much. She has all the insecurities a real woman would have, but still had her inner beauty and strength and thank you for having a man recognize that. It makes me love the book even more. Though thank you Ms. Singh for not making her a hunch back too, I don’t think I could have gotten past a hunchback. JK! As I was getting to the end of the book I was concerned I wasn’t going to get a good ending battle and I am happy to say I was wrong I was pretty satisfied with the end battle, but what would have made the ending even better, is if each author had written their characters battle and included it in this book, so we could have had all of the battles that were raging around the castle. That would have been pretty awesome! We do however still get a conclusion, so don’t read that and get disappointed.

Rating:

5