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. 

 

 

I will not lie, I bought this book because Nalini Singh is part of the quartet that created this. Nalini Singh is the author the Psy-Changeling Series (which I haven't read) and the Guild Hunter Series which I love. Singh wrote the last story of the quartet Lord of the Abyss. The other aithors include Gena Showalter, Jill Monroe, and Jessica Andersen. 

 

Despite my my reasons for buying these four stories, the entire theme of this quartet was fairy tales reimagined, all writers working towards a common goal: defeating the Blood Sorcerer that has killed the magical realm of Elden with his malignant sorcery. 

 

I enjoyed this quartet of reimagined fairy tales. I really did. I liked the bar rations of the different authors and how the goal of these stories was emphasized over and over again without it being want-to-strangle-books because of the repetition. 

 

I did think Dayn's intended was a bit on the weak and wishy-washy side, but beyond that, I would totally recommend this quartet to anyone that wants hot romance and seamless storytelling. 

I've always been baffled by books that are put out with spoilers in the blurbs – like mysteries telling who the victim in chapter 5 is going to be – or even in the jacket art. Putting one in the title, though, is even dumber than having a title which actually means little to the story (thinking of Across the Nightingale Floor here). On page 172 of Lord of the Wolfyn (about which title I wondered, since the main character is many things but not Lord of the Wolfyn), something happened which made my eyes flick up to the title, and I thought "Ah. Well, I know how that's going to come out, now, don't I." At which point I rolled my eyes and skimmed for awhile.

Apart from that, it was an, I think, above average paranormal romance (PNR), though surprisingly undersexed if anything. That is not, I should add, a complaint. It has an interesting premise, and interesting worldbuilding – I actually love and am intrigued by the concept of the three worlds linking, intrigued enough that I may one day seek out the other book in the series (one for each sibling – this was #3). Each seems to be a take on a different fairy tale, this one being Red Riding Hood.

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

Kara Gönülçelen (Royal House of Shadows ... Orijinali Kitap Esintisi adresinde.

Harlequin Mystery serisine başladı, iyi de oldu. Mayıs'ta başlanan Raintree serisine bayılmıştım, bu ay başlayan Royal House of Shadows da fena değil gibi görünüyor. Serinin ilk kitabı Kara Gönülçelen mükemmel olmasa da iyi bir başlangıçtı diyebilirim.

Nicolai, krallığı baskına uğrayıp ebeveynleri öldürüldükten sonra büyü ile hafızası silinir ve köle olarak satışa çıkar. Delfina'ın iğrenç prenseslerinden birinin pençesine düşer ve çileli günleri başlar. Bir şekilde büyük kız kardeşi öldürmeyi başarsa da küçük olanından kurtulamaz. Rüyasında gördüğü kadından uzun süredir etkilenen Nikolai onu kendine çağırır.

Jane ölümcül bir trafik kazasında ailesini kaybetmiş, kendisi de çok ağır yaralanmış bir bilim kadınıdır. O da bir süredir rüyalarında Nikolai'yi görmekte ve onu arzulamaktadır. Bir gün eve döndüğünde bir kutu bulur. İçindeki defter Nikolai'nin cümlelerini içermektedir ve uykuya daldıktan sonra kendini diğer evrende, vampirlerin, kurt adamların, büyücülerin olduğu bir yerde ölmüş olan Delfina prensesinin kılığında bulur. Görüntüsünün bu şekilde olmasını Nikolai sağlamıştır ve Jane'i olduğu gibi sadece o görebilmektedir.

Jane'in Nikolai'ye güvenmesi zaman alsa da çok geçmeden bir ikili olurlar ve oradan kaçmanın yollarını ararlar. Bu esnada yollarına birkaç şey çıkacak olsa da birbirlerinden vazgeçmeye hiç niyetleri yoktur.

Fena değildi, biraz daha yavaş ilerleyebilirdi tabi. Harlequin yapısı gereği hızlı ilerliyor ama bu sefer çok da sevemedim. Yine de seri başlangıcı olduğu için okumak gerek.